


In All My Dreams I Drown

by bluemoodblue



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Permanent Character Death, The Astral Plane, the real deal folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-05-28 15:45:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19397263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemoodblue/pseuds/bluemoodblue
Summary: There was an uncomfortable silence. The halfling cleared their throat. "Well, um. Do you know where you are?"They seemed to think he should, like the question had a glaring, obvious answer. And Taako felt like he should, somewhere in the back of his mind. His thoughts were working slowly, though, not yet ready to let go of the abrupt transition from the sunny day to this small room and the cold that was sinking into his bones. In the awkward, ensuing silence, something clicked into place.Everyone finds their way to the Astral Plane eventually. Some arrive too soon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an angsty “what if” scenario, specifically “what if Taako died first instead of last.” The more I worked on it, though, the more it grew into a look at the Astral Plane and what death looks like from the other side.
> 
> A sad scenario, and a sad beginning, but not one devoid of hope and healing eventually.

Not all exits are made equal. Some are quiet and inevitable, a slow approach with time for arrangements and setting affairs in order. Some catch us by surprise even when they shouldn't.

Some are abrupt - like a door slamming shut on an ongoing conversation.

"Did you get my letter, sir?"

Taako tossed a couple of towels in a tote bag. Fuck, he knew he'd forgotten something, The letter - all several pages of it, because Angus spared no detail - was probably buried in paperwork on his desk, and like fuck was he going back to his office this morning. Taako had a _plan_. "I got it, Ango." He tossed in some sunscreen. He could have done this packing last night and already been on his way, but at least the suitcases were already ready to go. That had to count for something.

"It's just that, I sent it a couple of weeks ago and I never heard back... so I thought maybe it had gotten lost in the mail."

That was a good excuse, and Taako filed it away to use later. "Yeah, I know. I'm a busy guy, sometimes, what with the entire school I run. Besides, I'm gonna see you in, what, a few hours? No point in responding to a letter when I'm about to see you face-to-face." Not like he hadn't read it the moment it was delivered, he reminded that sliver of guilt in his gut. Kravitz and Ren saw him do it, though he'd threatened them on pain of death if they ever told anyone.

"That's true." There was a pause as Taako tossed in a couple of snacks, just in case. "Are you still packing? I thought you told Kravitz you were ready!"

"Almost done, don't question my methods. I'll be ready in plenty of time to get crammed like a sardine in Merle's house." The family beach vacation was rapidly becoming a sacred tradition, and there was no avoiding it when his sister could just tear a rift to wherever he was hiding and drag him through. There was never enough room in the house, but beach time was always worthwhile, and it was an excuse to see everyone again without actually making the effort of visiting people individually. Maybe he was, ever so slightly, looking forward to it. _Maybe_.

"You better hurry, or you won't get a good room!"

Taako chuckled. "Yeah okay, leave me to my work, then. See you later."

What he didn't mention to Angus was that the only thing he was packing was a bag for the morning, and that he would be at the beach house in plenty of time to secure the best room since he was skipping out on work. It would be fine - Ren could hold down the fort for the day and Taako would get a few hours of waves before the beach was crowded. Sometimes a guy just wanted to start his vacation early.

Taako had always loved the water. He'd be the first one in when a caravan settled by a lake or stream, and he'd spend enough time swimming under the hot sun or fishing by the clear water that his skin would burn and freckle. Maybe kind of sentimental, maybe kind of stupid, to say that water fit him the way fire fit Lup; that didn't mean it wasn't true.

Lup agreed - she liked to say that it was just like him, as stubborn and as impossible to read. "To everyone but me," she'd correct herself, grinning. "I know about all of your secret currents." 

It had been a while since he'd been able to put responsibilities aside - both mundane and world-ending - and just play in the water. The morning was perfect, though, and the waves were just right for a few good hours of surfing. Taako didn't even bother to stop by the house first, already aware from long experience that if he was roped into a conversation with Merle he might sacrifice his head start completely. All he had with him was his tote and his surfboard; Kravitz could swing by the house for the other suitcases later.

It was so quiet out there on his own, just the sound of the waves and the call of a gull overhead. It was peaceful, and Taako managed to enjoy it longer than usual before his skin started to crawl at the thought of being alone.

That happened a lot - in Taako’s last life he’d appreciated alone time, but when his memories returned he couldn’t stand it. His head still vacillated between seeking out privacy and seeking out people; he should’ve guessed it would only be a matter of time before a private surf session would lose its appeal.

No big deal - he could call Kravitz to ditch work early. All he had left from the last assignment was some paperwork and that wasn’t going anywhere. Still peaceful and secluded, but with company this time - ideal.

Taako was lowering himself closer to the board so he could paddle himself back to the shore and his stone when something in his back popped violently. He groaned as the ache spread - he hadn’t been taking breaks like he should’ve and the old, leftover soreness from Wonderland wasn’t going to let him forget it. Sometimes he could go entire days and feel fine, but the pain was always waiting for him to fuck up.

It was bad today; Taako had been waving off concerned looks from his family all week and now the chronic ache in his back and joints took advantage of his stillness to assert their presence. He’d be abso-fucking-lutely useless for the rest of the day, and what was worse was that he was in pain just in time for the full force of his extended family’s worry to descend upon him. What a stellar fucking way to start a vacation, with everyone worried and hovering.

Taako sighed and started to paddle - there was nothing he could do about it now. He was still early, and maybe if he got to Merle’s house soon and had the chance to lay down for a while, he’d be in better shape by the time everyone else arrived.

A minute or two of paddling and Taako was forced to take a break. His arms were already tired; it had never been such a huge task to haul himself back into shallow waters before, but the shore didn’t look any closer and he was exhausted. A few more feeble attempts and Taako’s arms were screaming at him. He must have really overdone it. Fuck, how long had he been out here? Had he not noticed how much time was passing, or had he just not realized how much the ache had grown over the week? For the first time, watching the shore stay out of his reach and keeping any method he might have to call for help with it, Taako realized he might be in trouble.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he muttered to himself. “Merle’s house isn’t far, there’s gonna be a crowd of people on the beach, someone’s gonna see you out here eventually. You just have to wait.” He’d be easier to spot of he could sit up on his board, but nothing was responding the way it should. Either the tide would bring him closer eventually or someone would come out to get him.

No one got to the beach while Taako waited. The sun beat down on his back and his exhaustion sunk in deep, dragging his eyes slowly closed and coaxing the grip on his board to loosen. He didn’t notice how tired he was, how much the _hurt hurt hurt_ coming from all over sapped the energy away from him, or that he was already slipping from the board when another perfect wave flipped him.

Everything, suddenly, was water. Taako reached for the surface. He was rolled again, and then again, and direction lost all meaning. Taako reached blindly for anything. An agonizing pain burst at the back of his head, and the water was dark, and Taako was still reaching out to nothing.

* * *

Taako was in an office. The room looked familiar; the person sitting behind the desk did not. They were a halfling, and they had an enormous book that took up the whole desk open in front of them. They flipped through a couple of pages while he sat and watched from an uncomfortable chair.

Taako was dripping wet.

"You're early," the halfling told him. They nodded at something in the book. "Looks like we penciled you in last-minute. A shame, but sometimes these things happen." Apparently satisfied, they closed the book and smiled up at Taako.

He didn't remember walking in. He felt distant and indifferent - he couldn't keep up with whatever the fuck was going on and he wasn't trying to. All he knew was that he ached all over with a throbbing hurt, his head pounded, and he was soaked. The halfling hadn't made any mention of the growing puddle of water on the floor, and hadn't even offered Taako a towel yet. Rude.

There was an uncomfortable silence. The halfling cleared their throat. "Well, um. Do you know where you are?"

They seemed to think he should, like the question had a glaring, obvious answer. And Taako felt like he should, somewhere in the back of his mind. His thoughts were working slowly, though, not yet ready to let go of the abrupt transition from the sunny day to this small room and the _cold_ that was sinking into his bones. In the awkward, ensuing silence, something clicked into place.

Of course Taako knew where he was. He’d been here before, under much different circumstances.

The office looked like a room that might exist in any business in Faerun, but the halls outside would be all ornate marble and arching windows and thick pillars. The space would stretch on endlessly, always as big as it needed to be for all of the people who were there, and with as many types of rooms as they required. And somewhere in that mess of impermanent space was a throne room and the Raven Queen.

She already knew he was there. He could feel a gentle tug as she called him closer.

Taako didn’t pause to decide which way to go, and he didn’t bother explaining himself to the distressed halfling calling after him. He walked to the throne room, barefoot and trailing drops of ocean water onto the smooth, obsidian tiles.

He might have imagined that the Raven Queen looked sad; it was hard to tell. She beckoned him forward when he entered the room and probably would have welcomed him, but a welcome was the last thing he wanted. Taako stopped before he reached her.

“Can you fix this?” Taako’s voice sounded hoarse, and he wasn’t sure if it was the realization of where he was or the burn of saltwater in his throat. He tried not to think - there was an inevitability at the edge of his mind that he wasn’t ready to consider yet. The reapers standing around the edge of room were murmuring to each other, and he didn’t know if he should know any of them; their faces blurred together, he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He didn’t see Kravitz with them. He didn’t know how long he’d been here, how much lost time was between the water and waking up.

The Raven Queen silenced the talk with a gesture. “There is nothing to fix.” The sadness in her voice was unmistakable, and Taako didn’t want to _hear_ it.

“Like hell there isn’t.” He wished his voice was stronger, angrier, but he sounded choked. Anger was there, somewhere, beneath the fear and the denial. It was hard to reach. “This is too fucking soon. You know this is too soon, your guy in the office knows it’s too soon. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.”

Taako wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know, and it wasn’t enough to change her mind. “Even when it happens too soon, death cannot be undone, Taako. You know this.”

He did, but that didn’t mean he would accept it. “Istus —“

“Has no power over death.”

“But you do.” The words were cold, as much an accusation as a statement of fact. “You could undo it.”

The murmurs at the edge of the room were back. Taako couldn’t tell if they were outraged by his impertinence or just gossiping - they felt farther away than just the separation of a room. And then they were gone, and Taako and the Raven Queen were somewhere else.

The private room was more comfortable, filled with soft furniture, shelves of books, and a fresh tray of tea on a table by the enormous windows. The view looked out onto the Astral Plane, taken up almost entirely by the Sea of Souls. Taako recognized it, recognized the islands and ferries he'd seen while here with Kravitz, but it looked different now. Where before it had been dark with a scattering of lights like stars on a clear night, now there was color like the galaxies and nebulae of space. The sea had depth. The sky, though still softer than daylight, was bright with color.

It didn't look dead. Taako turned away from the window.

"Please sit down. Have some tea." The Raven Queen didn't wait for her new charge to accept her offer before taking her own seat at the table and pouring a cup for herself. "I am certain you will have pointers for whoever prepared the pastries."

Taako didn't sit down; he dripped onto the ornate rug and stared at her.

She put down her teacup. "You are hurting. You have a wound in your soul that is the inevitable result of loss. I will not try to tell you that you shouldn’t hurt - I would not disrespect your loss in such a way. But I cannot put you back, Taako.” She raised a hand to stop his argument before he had time to open his mouth and make it. “I _would not_ put you back. To put you back into a body that is not yours anymore..." The very idea seemed revolting to her. "It would be cruel. It... would hurt, and you still would not be alive."

“What if I said I wanted that anyway? What if I asked you to do it and fuck the consequences?” It was idiotic to think that he might know better than the goddess of death, but desperation clouded his judgment. He felt like he was drowning again and he would reach for any handhold he thought might save him.

The Raven Queen didn’t flinch. She didn’t look surprised at all, as if she’d had this conversation before. “I would not. And you would not ask me to. We both know you love your family too much for that.”

There was nothing he could say to that. Lup and Barry might have helped him come up with a plan, Kravitz might not have raised a word in disagreement, but any help they gave him would come with a price for them, too. And if they didn’t help him, they’d be the ones chasing after him. There was no good answer, and the Raven Queen already knew him well enough to know that.

Taako felt helpless, tossed around by the waves. His instincts were still shouting at him to find a way out, but part of him had known since his vision went dark in the water that it was already over. Everything was cold. Everything ached. The sea and sky outside were beautifully illuminated in shifting colors, but Taako felt grey.

He sat down across from the Raven Queen, and she smiled at him. "Welcome home, my child."


	2. Chapter 2

The anger came back. Everything came back, in turns, like a storm caught on the coastline - desperation for escape, despair, an empty and paralyzing loneliness - and Taako waited in the midst of the onslaught for something to give.

The Raven Queen's court kept Taako inside; no matter where he wandered, there were no doors to the docks outside or the small sliver of land that surrounded the structure. At first, Taako thought it must have been a reaction to his demands; he was a flight risk, and they would keep him locked in until they were sure he wouldn’t try to run. It was a wasted effort - Taako might want to go home, but he wasn’t trying to get any closer to the water than he had to be.

When the Raven Queen opened a vast, first floor window in front of him while he stood and watched - the kind that a potential escapee could jump out of easily - Taako knew she had other reasons for hiding the doors.

"You must be found, before you can go," she explained when he asked, taking a seat by the open window and allowing the sea breeze to blow through her hair. The wind smelled like the ocean and turned Taako’s stomach, and he took a step back. "You are still tied to the place where you died. That is why you carry your death with you."

Taako was never dry. No matter how much time passed he always looked as if he’d just been plucked from the water; it pooled at his feet when he paused, and it soaked into the furniture when he sat. He'd asked for a towel the first night, and he went through four more before he finally gave up the effort in frustration. He bled, too - just a trickle at the back of his head - and the ache from Wonderland seemed to settle on him like a permanent weight, making his movements slow.

Taako was sure that he looked every inch the part of a tragic, forlorn ghost. He wasn't the only one; restless souls wandered through the court at all hours, sparing little attention towards each other.

"What do you mean, found?" Taako's throat still burned. His voice didn't sound like his. "It sounds like some kind of spiritual healing schtick."

Any spiritual healing advice coming from a goddess was probably not a schtick, but the Raven Queen just quirked an eyebrow at him. "No. I mean that literally. Your family is looking for you."

Taako made an attempt to mask his flinch by crossing his arms. He looked out at the sea, vast and stretching into the horizon and not much of a comfort. "Fuck." He couldn’t think about them. He couldn’t consider where they were right then, or what they must have been thinking. There just wasn’t enough room in him. "Can't you tell them I'm here?"

“You are only here because my power is actively holding you here. If I let go of you, you would still be there.” She looked at him (she always seemed a little sad when she looked at him now). "Your final thought was a cry to your family. There is power in a last wish - if I ignored that wish or superseded it, you might never be released from your tie to the place where you died.”

“And I would be a ghost.”

“You are already a ghost.”

And so were the other souls, Taako discovered. A reaper he’d met before under better circumstances named Annalise sat down next to him with the optimistic goal of small talk. Ask her anything, she’d invited, and Taako asked something that seemed safely distant from the subject of his family.

All of them were waiting, she told him. For funerals, or lost treasures, or warnings. Some stayed for hours and some stayed for years, depending on what they were waiting for.

“I knew a soul once who waited a hundred years for justice. Someone had wronged her in a way she couldn’t forgive, and she refused peace until a worthy punishment could be found.” Annalise turned to look at him, smiling. “As sorry as I am that you’re here already, I’m glad that’s not the reason you’re stuck. The woman was right that she deserved justice, but I always wondered who that hundred years really punished.” Annalise shrugged. “Then again, she seemed happy enough at the end of it.”

A hundred years of wandering halls as a ghost. It was as long as Taako spent on the Starblaster, and he wondered what that kind of anger felt like. If the anger he felt just before the last fight against the Hunger would have lasted for a hundred years. If there had been souls who were waiting for him, until the truth was found out about Glamour Springs. Those questions didn’t have answers.

Instead, he asked about the details. The Astral Plane was filled with light because he was seeing it how it was meant to be seen, with the soul instead of mortal eyes. Yes, the boats on the dock had a purpose and a destination. No, the sea would not suck his soul in if he touched it - souls joined the sea when they were ready. He didn’t need food but he could still enjoy food (and, Kravitz’ coworkers hinted repeatedly, they would be happy to take care of any leftovers or baking he had lying around).

He didn't ask about the voices of his family echoing around in his head. That was probably a bad sign on any plane, and Taako didn't want to know if they were real or speculation. He did his best to block them out, but when there was no more distraction and the hallways were quiet, pieces would break through. Kravitz, asking where he was. Lup, threatening and bargaining by turns. Angus, logic-ing out increasingly unlikely scenarios that would mean everything was still okay.

It hurt, more than the ache of cold in his bones. It hurt, and he couldn't do anything for them. And so, with no other options in front of him, he waited.

Taako was in the Raven Queen's parlor again, trying not to drip too badly onto the checkerboard, when the ache dissipated and his skin felt warm. He looked up, and her smile finally reached her eyes.

He didn't have time to ask her for any details - a rift was already tearing itself open across the room, someone was already coming through. Kravitz. Kravitz, who looked like everything had been taken away from him and given back all at once.

Taako had only just managed to scramble out of the - now completely dry - armchair by the time Kravitz crossed the room to him. He held Taako's face in his hands for a moment, just staring at him, before crushing him into a hug. It didn't feel like he would ever let go. He was shaking, and Taako had no idea how to make this better. "Taako," he said, finally, his voice choked, "Taako, I'm so sorry. If I was there, if I'd seen...  _ I'm so sorry _ ."

"It's okay," Taako whispered. "I mean. It's not  _ okay _ , but. It was an accident." He was holding onto Kravitz, too, and he buried his face in his husband’s neck and let himself be there and safe and not alone.

They held each other for a long moment, until they were both sure that the other wouldn’t disappear. Eventually, what Taako said registered, and Kravitz shook his head. "This is too soon, Taako." He pulled away, staring at Taako's face again, and then looked to his queen.

"I know what you are going to ask, my child, and you know what the answer will be."

Taako reached up, wiping away a stray tear that had started to fall. It looked like there'd been a lot of that, lately. "Yeah, you think I didn't give her hell about that from day one? Think I didn’t immediately earn myself a reputation? No loopholes this time. I checked.” The tears kept coming, even as Kravitz tried to match Taako's thin smile. "Guess I don't have to ask how you're doing."

Kravitz laughed, not really a happy sound. “I'm. I don't know? I'm happy to see you. But I wish it wasn't here. I wish I'd found you anywhere else."

Taako rested his forehead against his husband’s. "I'm sorry."

"Taako -"

"I could have told you where I was going. Might not have changed anything but. You would've known where to look."

"It was an accident," Kravitz repeated. It was. That didn’t make the pain in Kravitz’ voice any less, or ease the aching in Taako’s chest.

Taako sighed. "Wish we could go home," he whispered, and Kravitz didn't have a response for him. "I guess you can, but -“

"No." Kravitz's arms, still around him, tightened. "I'm not living there without you. Lup and Barry can have it. Or whoever else wants it."

Taako almost didn't want to ask, but the question was out of his mouth before he could reconsider. "And Lup and Barry are still... back there, I guess?"

"They'll be here any minute." Kravitz rubbed a hand up and down his back. "Lup was. Well. She didn't want to leave you, and Barry didn't want to leave her. I think it might... take her a moment, to understand that what she's guarding doesn't need guarding anymore."

Taako didn’t bother asking if Lup was okay. He didn’t have to - he knew how he would feel if it their places were reversed.

The Raven Queen quietly excused herself, mentioning business that needed taking care of elsewhere in the court. Taako and Kravitz sat by the window and Kravitz alternated between stroking Taako's hair - or face, or arm, or any other part of him in reach. It hadn't been that long since they'd seen each other last, really, but it felt so much longer. What were the last things they’d said to each other, before everything changed? Taako couldn’t remember.

"I think I knew when I found your bag on the beach and didn't see you," Kravitz murmured into his hair, "But I didn't want to believe it. And we kept not finding you. It was like... we were whittling down hope to an end I already knew was coming."

"Wish I could've just told you. Bird mom said it doesn't work like that, though."

"Sometimes. She always has a reason for her rules.” He didn’t seem comforted much by the thought. “They feel more unfair this close up.”

Taako didn't notice the other rift opening until he heard a tiny, strangled  _ "Ko" _ from across the room. Kravitz let him go and Taako was halfway to her before he got a good look at Lup's face. He never meant to hurt her like that. And then they were clinging to each other, and Lup was holding on so tight that it should hurt, but Taako only noticed that it was easier to breathe.

Lup held him for a long, long time. He could tell from the hitches in her breathing when she was crying and when she stopped. He didn’t know what to say. He could feel something broken sliding back into place in his chest.  _ Found. Not alone anymore. _

"That wasn't  _ fucking _ allowed, Ko, you're not supposed to  _ die _ on me." She was crying again, and he was too - not quite done with saltwater after all. "You weren't anywhere, and then you were… Fuck. I  _ missed _ you."

"I missed you too, Lulu," he whispered, and Lup reached up to brush away his tears.

"Are you okay?" The question was soft. "Did it hurt?"

He was... okay. Maybe. He was dead and he was maybe okay. "Didn't hurt as much as some of the others."

“That’s… something, anyway.” She didn’t seem to know what to do with her face, whether the news was an actual comfort or not. “I can tell everyone that you didn’t suffer and it won’t even be a lie.” He didn’t ask her how they were. There was too much hurt in the room already, and Taako already didn’t know what to do with all of it. It was too late for him to help. “I should be dragging your ass home right now. This isn’t fair.”

Taako couldn’t stand hearing her talk with all of the fire gone from her voice. He was the reason she sounded that way, and he wasn’t going to forget that. “If we’re sneaky, maybe no one will notice you breaking me out.”

She laughed - just a little, but it was sincere. If he could still make her laugh, things could be okay. “Kravitz is right there.”

“Kravitz is looking out of the window right now and not paying attention to what you’re talking about,” Kravitz said from across the room. “But, for the record - she’s not willing to make an exception.”

Lup never had liked being told she couldn’t do something. She pulled away enough that Taako could see her scowl. “That conversation isn’t closed. This is  _ bullshit _ . If it’s about the body, we can grow a new one! It’s not a big deal!”

“I think it’s technically necromancy.” That was Barry, and despite the gentle reminder he didn’t sound especially opposed to the idea.

“Taako’s  _ technically _ here hundreds of years early! I’m going to talk to her.” She moved to step away and hesitated. “You’ll be okay here? You won’t up and vanish again?”

Taako gave his best impression of a smile. “Not going anywhere. Go yell at your boss - don’t worry about me.” The Raven Queen wasn’t going to grant a pardon, but Lup wouldn’t be convinced of that until she’d tried for herself.

“Oh, don’t  _ worry _ about you,” she said, letting go of him and rolling her eyes. “I left you alone for a day and you  _ died _ , but I shouldn’t worry about you.” But she was smiling.

Lup went to the Raven Queen to appeal, Barry went to their family to console, and Taako curled up next to Kravitz on the window seat again, feeling tired but warm, aching but safe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter this time! Just because this feels like the natural place to end the chapter, but no worries, we still have a ways until the end.

“How are you today, love?”

Tired - always tired. Taako didn’t say that, though - he turned and smiled, watching his husband close a rift behind him. Kravitz wanted to stay with him as much as he could, and he did his best, but there was work.

And a funeral to plan.

Taako didn’t know anything about it, and he didn’t want to. In a weird way, it didn’t have anything to do with him; he wasn’t there anymore, he wasn’t going to be there, and it wasn’t for him even if the people attending thought it was. Taako was already at rest - the funeral was closure for everyone left behind. And anyway, Lup knew what he liked.

The only thing Lup asked Taako was if there was anyone he didn't want attending. There’d been a cautious look on her face when she brought it up, the one that told him "please pick the right answer so I don't have to argue you down."

"Who wouldn't I want there?"

"What about Lucretia?"

Taako's ears drooped, and he frowned. "She'd better be there," he’d muttered softly, and that was the end of the conversation.

Kravitz must have been helping with the arrangements; his expression was stiff in a way that never happened after a bounty. Taako held open his arms and Kravitz sank into his hold gratefully. “I’m okay.” It was almost the truth. Approaching okay, possibly. “You wanna talk about it?”

Lup and Kravitz - and Barry, even if he did a better job at hiding it - hated the whole process. Lup especially visited him often and unexpectedly, tearing her way into the court directly from whatever meeting or consultation she was just released from. "It's gonna be a fantastic funeral because I'm not letting you get less than the best, but I hate _thinking_ about it. _Everything_ is a reminder. Every single thing."

Kravitz sighed. “I hate it. Every time I’m around your family I’m reminded that I’m there alone? And they look at me like… like they want to ask, but they’re not sure if they can.”

Taako pulled Kravitz closer to him on the couch, and Kravitz didn’t resist. He rested his head on Taako’s shoulder, and some of the tension left him. “What would you tell them? If they asked you.”

“I want to tell them that you’re okay - that you’re happy. But you aren’t, are you?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Kravitz would see right through him anyway.

“Can I show you something?”

It was hard to say no to Kravitz when he looked like that. He took his husband’s hand and followed him to the door for the first time since arriving, and out to the docks.

And he hesitated.

Kravitz tugged him forward gently, smiling. “I’m here this time. I won’t let anything happen.”

There was a boat waiting for them. The Sea of Souls stretched out in every direction, but there were shapes marring its surface - islands dotting the water, a sure indication that there was more to the Astral Plane than the imposing court of its queen. Kravitz squeezed his hand when they walked on board, and the boat started moving to whatever destination Kravitz had in mind.

Taako was reminded of the view from the Starblaster. They were surrounded by stars and the shifts of galaxies. The light came from everywhere, above and below. It was never as bright as daylight, there, but it was never as dark as night. It was always, always filled with shifting color; it was beautiful, in a different way than daylight.

The boat stopped when they reached an island. It was a cove, encircled by rock from behind and with a beach and dock in front. There was a small stretch of grass set back from the beach, and on that little bit of greenery was a house.

Their house. It looked exactly the way it had in the Material Plane. Taako stared. "How long have you been planning this?"

Kravitz reached around him and hugged Taako from behind. "Since before you got here. I was thinking of the _distant_ future, but. Since we're here now, it shouldn't go to waste." He lets Taako go, but only for a moment - just long enough to take his hand and lead him from the boat and to the dock, then from the dock and to the front door.

Every detail inside is right - Kravitz thought of everything. They curl up together on their own couch and Kravitz turned to him. “Feel any better?”

Taako smiled. “Yeah, a bit. How about you?”

Kravitz smiled too, brittle, and brushed a lock of hair from Taako’s face. “At least I can tell them that I brought you home, now.”

* * *

Taako was alone on the day of the funeral. 

“You don’t have to hang around and babysit me,” Taako told Lup when she’d asked him - cautiously, as if another reminder that he was dead would be enough to break him - about going to the service. “It’s gonna be a boring day around here, anyway. Not much going on at Chateau Taako. You might as well go see the big event, since you put so much work into it.”

He knew Lup saw right through him to the barely-restrained plea to stay with him instead, and he knew that she would if he asked. But she needed the closure too, and she needed to be there for the rest of the family. Taako could stand to be alone a little longer for her sake. 

“We’re crashing at your place for a week when this is over,” she’d told him, relieved that she didn’t have to explain why she had to go even when they both knew Taako had to stay. He was holding her to it.

Curled up on the couch and watching the light from the windows shift and move across the walls, Taako tried not to think of everyone else. It was a losing battle from first thing that morning - Taako tried to make a big, elaborate (distracting) breakfast, only to freeze at the stove and let the eggs burn when Angus McDonald told him good morning. His day hadn’t improved from there. It seemed like everyone he knew had something to say, sometimes enough that their voices overlapped, and Taako had no defense.

Ren wanted him to know that she'd take care of the school. Magnus made the casket, and he spent a long time going over all of the details of his work with false cheer before quietly apologizing that his appeals to Istus hadn't come to anything. Angus sounded smaller and younger than Taako could remember hearing him and protested quietly that it wasn't fair. Lup told him she'd see him next year before she remembered that they were somewhere else now. Kravitz, who knew Taako was listening, promised they'd be home soon. Merle cracked a half-hearted joke. Davenport didn't seem to know what to say; he gave a familiar salute that he'd given every one in his crew at some point, and walked away unsatisfied.

It was overwhelming. His family's grief mixed with his own, and it was all that he could do to stare at the wall and ride out the waves of pain. Taako wanted to scream back at them that he could _hear_ them, he could hear _all_ of them, just _stop_ , but more than that... he wanted to be heard at all. Didn’t matter what it was - he wanted to say something back. He couldn't. He was out of reach, and he mourned with his family.

When the light on the wall had dimmed to the dark blue of deeper waters, he uncurled from his place on the couch. His back didn't hurt but something in him ached, and he was belatedly relieved that Kravitz hadn't stayed. Kravitz probably knew Taako wouldn't want anyone else around - probably knew that today would be hard.

Taako wandered out of the house, down the steps, and to the beach. He sat down on the sand right at the edge of the water. The waves lapped at the shore, but the water was too filled with stars to look like the ocean - there was a depth to it that could swallow him if he let it. He wasn't ready for that yet; instead, he watched the water and waited for the ache to stop.

The ceremony was long over, and Taako was about to go back inside and make enormous amounts of comfort food when he heard one more voice.

"Hello, Taako." Lucretia sounded composed in a way that only practice could achieve, and even then the veneer was thin. "We... haven't talked in a while. If this even counts as talking - you'd probably say it doesn't, since you can't say anything back."

Taako smiled. It was unfair that she still knew him that fucking well.

"I'm not even sure what to say," she whispered. "I had a whole conversation planned for the vacation, and that's gone tits-up, hasn't it?" Lucretia sighed. "I miss you. Everyone does, but... I've missed you for a while. I didn't push because I thought we'd have more time than this. If not to fix things, then at least to repair a few bridges. One more conversation. _Something_." A pause. "You survived so many things. It's... impossible, that you're just not here anymore." 

There was a longer pause, and Taako had time to wonder if she'd left when she spoke again. "I'm still sorry, for what it's worth. And I love you. They'd better be taking good care of you over there - I hope they know how important you are."

It was quiet after that - quiet in the Astral Plane, and quiet in Taako's head. And even though no one could hear him, Taako answered anyway. "Miss you, too."


	4. Chapter 4

"Now what," Taako asked one night, after Lup and Barry were gone.

"Now you can rest," Kravitz answered, pulling his husband close.

* * *

It took Taako about a week to decide he'd had enough rest.

* * *

It was harder to get into the boat alone.

Part of the problem was working up the nerve to walk all the way down the dock to where the boat was tied. Another part was convincing the boat to go when there was no sail and no steering. It wasn’t like he’d asked any questions about boat operation since arriving, not like death came with an instruction manual. Not like the boat came with an oar. He searched the tiny vessel twice for a hidden mechanism before settling back onto the wooden floor and groaning when it started moving on its own.

Taako didn’t leave a note - it was just a quick trip to the Raven Queen’s court, just to see people and not be alone while his limited remaining family went to work. It would be the first place Kravitz would look if Taako wasn’t home before him. It was fine.

And he was bored. So far, death was either painfully boring or just painful, and Taako was tired of burying himself in cooking or sleep. There was too much _life_ left in him to just lay down and fade away. Kravitz understood, at least as much as he could see that Taako was still _Taako_ dead or otherwise. But when Taako asked him what there was for spirits to do in the afterlife, Kravitz looked like he’d been put on the spot.

"I don't... know? I've never... thought about it, I guess."

“Really? No freshly-picked soul has ever asked you where the hot spots were when they got here?” There must have been other people, besides the reapers and the few souls still wandering around the court and waiting for peace. Taako's early end was already sad, but the prospect of losing his mind in an empty death plane was tragic.

"I deal with the death criminals. They don't usually want to hang out after I put them in jail."

Kravitz had spent time with the reapers when he’d spent time with anyone at all before meeting Taako. He didn't make a habit of visiting the islands Taako had been able to see from the court's window, besides the small, stark rock that housed the Eternal Stockade. Kravitz had only ever seen a handful of them, anyway.

"I just don't want to get your hopes up, love," Kravitz told him. "I'm sure there are plenty of things in the Astral Plane I've never heard of, but you might not find what you're hoping for. Your job now is to let your soul heal."

This wasn't healing, Taako thought as the boat drifted far enough from his little island that it was an afterthought against a backdrop of color. This was stagnation. This was another kind of death.

The court wouldn’t be hard to find again. It was the only other place in the Astral Plane he’d been to since moving in, and he remembered the direction he and Kravitz had come to reach their island. But the time he’d spent in the boat started to stretch longer than he remembered that trip lasting with nothing to show for his progress, and eventually Taako had to admit to himself that something had gone wrong.

He was adrift in the stars and shifting light. There were no islands anywhere that he could see - only the sea and the sky meeting at the edges of his vision, trapping him in a perfect sphere. And he was alone again.

Taako lay down in the boat. If he called for help, would the Raven Queen hear him? It was her realm; maybe it would be nothing to her to pluck him out of the sea and return him somewhere familiar. Maybe she would send a reaper, and Taako would have to explain that a hundred years of space travel had not prepared him to navigate a boat that propelled itself.

He could drift for a while, Taako decided. He had nothing but time.

And he almost laughed because here he was again, unbelievably, at the mercy of the water. Alone and waiting, either to find the shore on his own or for someone to find him - and there wasn’t any chance of being found, not with his last pieces of family after a bounty for who even knew how long. No one would come looking.

Drifting didn’t do much good; he couldn’t tell if he was moving with nothing around him to mark his progress, and he had no way of knowing how long he’d been lost already. Before he could sit up and start paddling by hand, no better ideas forthcoming, he felt a jolt against the side of his boat.

“Oh shit, I must’ve drifted off course. You okay in there?”

Taako sat up slowly. Standing over him in her own boat was a mountain of a woman, tall and sturdy. Not that her height mattered so much - the woman in the boat had a presence, and that made her impossible to ignore.

She looked like someone who could stand by unbothered in a storm, or throw someone with a weaker will over her shoulder to carry away. Her clothes were sensible, her long, auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her expression seemed to lean more towards laughter by default.

Taako saw the red bandanna in her hair, and he knew exactly who she was. She would’ve been unmistakable even without it, after all the times her husband talked about her.

"I think we’re the only two out here for miles," Julia Burnsides told him, reaching out a hand to help him to his feet. He let himself be pulled, and had the throwaway thought that Magnus had found someone just as willing to manhandle a person on a whim as him for a life partner. “I’d almost call it fate, running into you here.”

"Could be. Not many accidents in a place like this, if I had to guess." He was staring. He knew she was dead, but “dead” had meant something different to him when he’d been on the other side - gone in a permanent way, a missed opportunity, not someone he’d ever _meet_ . Not someone who still _existed_. And yet. “If I’m being honest, this is kind of a lucky break for me. I don’t know if it’s obvious, but I’m lost as fuck right now.”

She laughed, and it rocked her boat just a little. "When you’re laying down and having a little nap in the middle of the sea? Pretty obvious.” She patted him on the back. “Don’t let it bother you - everyone gets lost their first time out. No instructions, you know? It’s all ‘you must find your own path to healing’ and ‘follow the guidance of your soul on your journey,’ which is never as useful as a good, old-fashioned map if you ask me." She raised an eyebrow at Taako. "Was there anywhere in particular that you were trying to get to?"

Taako could have mentioned the court - he wasn’t going to get a better chance to ask directions - but he was reluctant to go. It was his opportunity to find the islands, he told himself, even as he knew that wasn’t the only reason "Abso-fucking-lutely anywhere," Taako said with feeling, and Julia laughed again.

"You're going the wrong way, but since the way is changing all the time, who can blame you?" She held out a hand to him. "Julia Burnsides."

Her handshake was as firm as he would have expected. "Taako." He didn't elaborate - he wanted to know if she would recognize the name, if she'd heard the story all the way here. He didn’t know why that was suddenly important to him.

Julia’s smile wilted, and the easy joy in her eyes hardened to something serious, clever, and penetrating. She stared at Taako for several long moments, sizing him up. It was, Taako thought, the look of a revolutionary, someone who‘d had to see through a person to their true intentions.

She found what she was looking for. Her severe expression broke back into a smile, softened with amazement. "You know Magnus," she said and then, more sure, "You're Magnus's family." Taako nodded, and Julia leaned over to give him a tight hug. "So it _was_ fate. You must be early, if you got here before him. Come on, help me tie the boats together and we'll go somewhere we can talk."

* * *

There were so many islands and so many people in the Astral Plane, once someone knew where to look. There were entire towns that had passed away into memory, occupying their own piece of land in the sea. Phandalin was somewhere out there, and probably a good portion of its population. There were seaside villages, and mountain towns, and vast cities from ages past. Julia wanted to see them all, and she told him about the places she’d already visited as the boats set a slow, undemanding pace.

"You'll never be alone here if you don't want to be," she told Taako, grinning back at him.

Raven's Roost - the old Raven's Roost, the one that had been rubble and a memory for years in Faerun - rose in spires from the water as they approached. The island was enormous, looming over them like a mountain, and Julia seemed perfectly at ease in its shadow as she docked their boats at the bottom and led him up the narrow path.

Raven’s Roost was not a lonely place. The dock was crowded with boats, and the streets were crowded with people. Some, with houses and animals in the yard, looked like they belonged to the town; others were clearly visiting, with clothing in styles Taako had never seen and exploring the island with interest. It was so alive, like it had never been destroyed.

"Little wonder you got lost - the islands move," Julia started to explain when they entered the tavern. She was interrupted by loud and enthusiastic greetings, and several patrons moving aside to leave a place for her and Taako to sit. "It can be tricky to navigate. A lot to do with knowing what you’re actually looking for.” She glanced at Taako, thoughtful. “What were you thinking about, when I showed up?”

“Not a thing. I was half asleep by the time you got there.” He ignored the skeptical look she shot him, taking a sudden interest in the people around them.

“Mmm, I was just thinking, that would explain the sudden detour.”

Taako shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you. No spooky death plane magic here, just boring good luck. Hell of a coincidence.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “But that’s not _really_ what you want to talk about, is it?”

Julia smiled, relenting and leaning forward to prop her chin in her hand. “You’re right. Tell me every dumb thing my Magnus has done since I last saw him.”

Julia liked talking about Magnus as much as Magnus had always liked talking about her. They were still in love; time and distance hadn’t taken that away. Taako and Julia talked for hours, and it hurt (a fresh wound and an old one sharing space at the table), but it was a different kind of hurt. Not the one-way conversations Taako sometimes heard, not the updates from people who could still talk to the living, but a shared kind of loss.

And Julia was funny. It didn’t take long for Taako to feel comfortable with her, like she might be the kind of person he could enjoy being around. In that "what if" place where things were better than they'd actually turned out, she would have fit in perfectly with the rest of the family. Magnus always used to say so. _And she will, eventually_ , Taako thought, because they'd all want to meet her - in that future "what if" place where he and Julia could see them and talk to them again.

He could be waiting a long time. Julia already had.

When both of them were tired and the crowd in the tavern had thinned to only a few stragglers, Julia led Taako outside again and down to their boats. She reached out to untie them from each other, and hesitated. She looked at Taako. “I have an extra room, if you want to stay the night.”

They were family, sure, but they’d known each other all of one day. “You’d really be okay with that? You barely know me.”

Julia smirked. “What’re you gonna do, murder me in my sleep? Besides…” She looked out over the open water, so much darker now. “I know there’s a reason you were in that boat. Are you really okay with being alone right now?”

Kravitz, Lup, and Barry would only be away for a couple of days at most, if everything went according to plan - less than that, hopefully. Kravitz had promised Taako as much before he left, leaning in to kiss him goodbye before stepping through the rift. And it had sounded like nothing at the time, nothing to have some quiet hours… until those hours started to weigh on him. Until he woke up in his familiar bed and, just for a moment, thought he was actually home.

“Could be a nice change of pace,” he admitted.

She led them to a little island with lots of grass and a little, wooden house. It looked like it was under construction with piles of wood and tools around it, but Taako couldn't see anywhere it was incomplete. He followed her inside where an extra bed was waiting.

(When he woke up in an unfamiliar room and a still-unfamiliar plane, there were no illusions about where he was.)

In the morning - after breakfast, and so what if Taako showed off a little - Julia pushed Taako from the dock in his own boat. "I don't guess you've spotted my island since yesterday," he said, only just fighting down the urge to reach out to the dock and cling again. He didn't know why the prospect of floating alone on the sea bothered him _now_ when he was prepared to settle in for the long haul yesterday. Maybe it was knowing that the sea was much larger than he gave it credit for - and that the islands moved. He could be drifting for the rest of his afterlife.

"Nope."

“Do you actually have a plan? For getting me home?"

Julia grinned. "You'll probably get there eventually."

The urge to reach out to the dock was stronger after that, but he was too far away; he'd have to actually get out of the boat, and fuck that. Fuck water. Taako was sworn off of swimming for the rest of forever.

"Next time," she called as he floated on to destinations unknown, "I'll teach you how to find the islands! Don't worry, I'll find you!" He watched her island, and the greater islands, drift away from him.

"If I'm still in the boat by then, don't bother! I _will_ throw you overboard!" The last glimpse of Julia faded away with the sound of her laughter.

His path was aimless for a while, but it wasn’t long before something changed; the boat turned slightly and moved with purpose, like it was being tugged by a string. He saw the island, his island, growing in the distance, and someone standing on the dock outside - calling him back. As soon as the wood of the boat hit the dock, before it was even secured, Kravitz was there in front of him. His eyes were filled with frantic questions that he didn't have time to ask before pulling Taako to his feet and into his arms.


	5. Chapter 5

The islands, and Taako's visit with Julia, would have made a much more convincing story if he had been able to explain how either happened with any level of confidence.

"It's not that we don't believe you," Lup told him, sprawled out on his couch after invading his living room, still in reaper garb because she couldn't be bothered to expend any more effort than necessary. "It's just, it’s a lot, you know? And I definitely believe that _you_ believe what you saw, but Taako... you were out on a boat on your own. In a place _Kravitz_ has never heard of. Are you sure you didn't dream it? Or like..."

"Or like, make it up so it doesn't sound like I was lost at sea for a whole day? Tell a better story than me losing my shit alone in a boat?"

Lup looked at him, frowning. "You okay?” Her expression said she’d like to ask him a lot more than that.

Taako sighed and sat on her legs, ignoring her protests. "Okay enough. Plenty okay enough to know that I saw what I saw, and to know that you should’ve taken the new-employee tour. I know the death plane better than you and the jeansman after being here a fraction of the time - what kind of reapers are you?” 

Lup smiled, rescuing her legs from him and propping them up on his lap. If he didn't know her as well as he did, he might have missed the hint of concern still on her face. “I’ll take your word for it, Ko. But _only_ because I want to be the first one to meet Julia.”

“Deal.”

* * *

As luck would have it - as Taako’s luck, specifically, would have it - Julia came by again when Taako was home alone. He saw her through the window while she was tying her boat to the dock, and she barely knocked before opening the front door and announcing herself.

Just like someone else he knew, Taako thought, and told her he was in the kitchen.

She helped him cook this time, washing her hands and diving right in like she knew the recipe. "It's a lot like something Magnus used to make," she said eventually. "Well. _Tried_ to make. He was so sure he remembered all of the steps, and he was so upset when it didn’t taste right once it was done. He taught me how to make it, and he liked it… but we never did figure out what was missing.”

Taako grinned. “That’s because he never waited long enough to find out what was in anything I cooked before shoving it in his mouth.” He turned his attention back to the pot. “We won’t be able to figure out what was missing…”

“Until he gets here.” Taako looked back up at her, but Julia was focused on the vegetables, smiling gently. If the expression had any bitterness, she did a good job of hiding it.

“You make it seem easy,” Taako said before he’d really decided to say anything at all. She waited for him to explain, and he did his best to nail down what he meant. “Being here and talking about him when he isn’t. Being alone.”

“Well, I’m not alone,” Julia told him after a moment’s pause. “Haven’t been in a long time - and neither are you, but I know that doesn’t change how it feels. As for the rest…” She finished with these vegetables and dropped them in the pot, then smiled at him sheepishly. “This is gonna sound like some sappy Candlenights special, but it gets better. Eventually. Not all at once and probably never completely, but it’s sort of the point, for your soul to heal while you’re here.”

“You’re right,” Taako told her, “That’s sappy as fuck. Holy shit, Julia, thinking about taking up a new career in evangelization for the Raven Queen? Gonna spread the good word about the soul soup?” Julia laughed and shoved his shoulder, and neither of them pushed the subject.

After lunch, Taako cleared the table and Julia spread out several large, old maps across its surface. “It’s easier to find what you’re looking for when you _know_ what you’re looking for,” she explained. “The maps are more of… an inventory.”

Taako looked them over at a glance - they were drawn in different styles and with different notations of space, clearly by different people. In some, the islands were scattered to distant corners, while others depicted clusters of individual landmasses competing for space. They were completely useless for navigation, but they revealed a pattern - the shapes stayed the same, and Taako began to recognize some of the outlines between different maps. Occasionally, a shape would stop showing up or a new one would appear.

“The islands don’t stay?”

“Everything sinks into the sea eventually. Nothing stays forever.”

Taako remembered the feeling of waves rolling over him and tried not to think of what it might feel like to drown again.

Most of the afternoon was a review of what islands were still floating - their names and their histories, and what they would look like when Taako found them. “It’s not really a science,” Julia explained. “There’s not a compass to use or a star to follow. If you know where you’re going, eventually you’ll find it. Most people are looking for a person, and that’s how they find the first island.” She smiled. “I found Raven’s Roost when I went looking for my dad. Felt like coming home.”

“And you can bring other people closer.” It wasn’t a question, and when Julia gave him a look he didn’t explain his certainty. 

“You can,” she said. “But not if the one you’re calling doesn’t answer. It’s all about what a person really wants - if you ever decided you wanted the sea to yourself, no one could find you.”

Taako had nothing to say to that.

* * *

The birthday invitation to Lup, to Barry, to _Kravitz_ and not to Taako was... not a surprise. Taako wouldn't be invited - Taako couldn't be invited anywhere anymore. But it stung, and Taako still stared at the neat scrawl of Angus McDonald on the fancy paper resting on the kitchen table.

"I'm not planning on going." Taako barely heard Kravitz behind him. He was absorbed with the note and afraid to touch it - it was the first thing that made it from "up there" to "down here."

(He couldn't say why he thought of the Material Plane as somewhere above them - that wasn't how it worked. The Astral Plane wasn't an underworld. He couldn't fly up and hope for a hole or something.)

It was the first time he’d seen Angus’s handwriting in a long while. He wondered if it would fall through his hands if he tried to pick it up. He didn’t try because that paper on the table wasn’t for _him_ and not just because his name wasn’t included.

Nothing from up there was for _him_. 

"You should go." Taako's voice sounded mechanical and insincere even to his own ears. He tried again. "I mean, you were specifically invited, they want you there." He sounded bitter that time - not an improvement.

"I wouldn't do that to you."

Taako's ears flattened. He didn't know why that felt worse, but the gesture prickled. Maybe because it was a choice Kravitz could make one way or the other, instead of a foregone conclusion. Maybe because Kravitz was treating Taako like glass again while he was left feeling brittle and broken and _dead_. "You can do whatever you want, Kravitz. Don't let me stop you from living your life."

"Taako." Kravitz's voice was soft and confused. A little hurt, even. Maybe. "You're not... what?" He was still mostly in the reaper uniform, the cape disintegrated halfway up. "I don't want to do something that would hurt you."

"It hurts anyway!" It came out louder than he meant it to, louder than he expected it to be, and Kravitz froze. "It all fucking hurts anyway, so what does it matter!"

Taako knew this was coming. Life would happen whether he was a part of it or not. He knew it would hurt, but he hadn’t counted on the jealousy and the bitterness that were reaching up and trying to choke him. Kravitz was right there in the room and Taako still felt _alone_ , because his family had lives to live that he wasn’t allowed to be a part of anymore. 

He hated it. Taako wanted to scream at how unfair it was and throw things, he wanted to fling his anger in Kravitz's face... 

But Kravitz didn't do this. It wasn't his fault that Taako was an idiot and kicked the bucket early. 

"Dying would've been easy if I'd just waited longer," Taako said. His smile didn't sit right on his face, and the smile Kravitz returned didn't look right either. Taako sat down at the table heavily and pushed the paper away; he could touch it easily enough after all, not that it made a difference. He felt as cold as he had in the Raven Queen’s court. “Does it ever stop feeling like this?”

Kravitz sat next to Taako, and maybe he could tell that Taako was still all raw nerve because he held his husband’s hand and didn’t make any attempt to move closer than that. “That’s what I hear.” At Taako’s look, he elaborated. “I don’t remember much about dying, and I don’t think I had as much to lose. But I hear it gets better.”

Taako used to get pages of that scrawl in letters, every tiny detail of Angus’s life. That was gone, too. If Angus was still writing letters Taako wasn’t getting them, and the things he told Taako directly had slowed to a stop. When he stopped noticing the letters weren’t coming anymore… maybe that’s when things would be better.

It was quiet between them for a moment. “You should go,” Taako tried again. The bitterness was gone, but there was no conviction behind his words.

“Taako -”

“You should go, Kravitz. They’re your family, too.” _We’re a package deal_ , Taako could remember telling him sometime before the wedding. _If you marry me, you’re stuck with these idiots too. You ready for that_?

And Kravitz’ face had lit up like Taako had given him a gift. He couldn’t take that away; he couldn’t drag Kravitz down into the deep with him. Making Kravitz unhappy would never make Taako happier, and if that ever changed Taako might as well make a beeline to the water’s edge because that was a loss too far.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Taako smiled. “It’ll hurt anyway. I think that’s just how this works, babe.” He leaned over and kissed Kravitz, and he changed the subject.

That night, when he was sure Kravitz was asleep, Taako crept out of the house and sat down on the beach, just out of reach of the waves. He looked up at the sky as though he could spot the place where his world met the other one. All he saw were stars and the dim green and blue of the evening, perfectly reflected below him. A mirror. For a moment, he felt like he’d surrendered to the sea already.

“How did _you_ handle it?” The question was directed above him. His voice would never carry that far. “You were left behind. How did you deal with feeling like this?”

Taako waited for hours, but she never answered.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may recognize a character introduced at the end of this chapter from another fic. If you don't, no worries - all will be revealed in time!

The house was too empty and too quiet when it was just him, so whenever his family worked, Taako took the boat. The note on the table, left in case he missed anyone, always said the same thing:

_Gone to the islands._

He couldn’t say which one he was going to, because he never knew beforehand; he unrolled a sketched map of his own - taken from the most recent map Julia had - and picked a destination at random. It wasn’t about where he was going, it was about _going_ anywhere at all so he didn’t feel like a ghost haunting his own house. 

No stories Julia could tell him, no maps, could compare to finding the islands for himself. There were cities that stood as the head of now-fallen empires, mountains that were no longer as sharp in life as they appeared on the horizon, landscapes that had shifted with time but had been someone’s beloved childhood ideal years ago. They were snapshots through time of a world Taako had only really gotten to visit before having to leave again.

And there were people. More people than Taako expected to find.

Angus’s grandfather was in a city that looked like Neverwinter. It had been Neverwinter once, not so long ago for a city, and most of the buildings and streets looked familiar to Taako. That Neverwinter died when the memory of the Relic Wars was taken; it was a different place after, too different to keep existing in the same way. Reconstruction after the apocalypse meant that the version in the Astral Plane was now more than just a shadow of a living city. It was a memory of what a city used to be, twice over. 

Finding him was entirely accidental; Taako was on the island anyway when he heard a familiar last name and followed the lead on a hunch. The hunch led him to a house on the edge of town that was enormous - intimidatingly so, and exactly the kind of place where a person would have genuine, irreplaceable silverware. It and the neighborhood surrounding it were the kind of place he and Lup might have wandered as children, out of sight from any locals who would report them as pickpockets whether or not they’d indulged in any light stealing, and dream about what the future might have for them. The thought almost had Taako turning around to walk away, but curiosity won out. 

The manor (because a house that size couldn’t really be called a house, _Taako’s_ house was a _house_ ) was filled with books; instead of an exact copy of life, the elder McDonald had converted the space to fit his needs in the afterlife. Every wall, every table, even under the furniture were books on every conceivable subject. It looked like the study had infected the rest of the house and started a spread that couldn’t be beaten back. 

The study - the obvious starting point of the spreading plague - was where Taako found McDonald the first time he visited and most times after. He was sitting at an enormous desk and had forgone the large, leather-bound tomes around him for a beaten up and frequently read paperback. His grin was almost immediate when he saw Taako. “I did hope you’d find your way here. Angus has told me so much about you.”

He seemed to know why Taako followed the hunch, and he seemed uninterested in talking about the reason directly. He offered games of skill or chance, he collected stacks of books for Taako to take with him when he left, and he brewed a pot of coffee that would have thrown Barry out of his body during the early lich days on the Starblaster. And he looked - just a bit, around the eyes - like his grandson.

Finding Noelle was less by chance, but only just - he saw an island covered in neat rows of trees and turned the boat, wondering. "My family's orchard," she said, with a face and voice he didn't know, but the same overpowering hug when she ran through the trees to meet him. "It's the whole western field that went up in a wildfire years before I was born. They tell me everyone in the Redcheek clan makes it here eventually."

And, in a softer voice: “Killian told me, when it happened. I would’ve gone looking for you, but… well, if you weren’t ready to leave your house yet, I figured you’d earned a little peace. It’s good to see you now, though.”

There were always apples in the orchard, no matter the season, and Noelle’s family made cider like they always had and always would. But when Noelle heard about the islands, saw Taako’s boat like the ones lined up at the dock, her eyes lit up. “I found Neverwinter once, and a little cove all on its own, but I reckon I haven’t gotten out enough myself, either. What’d they think, if Carey and Killian knew that death made me a homebody?”

If death made Noelle anything, it made her _more_ ; for Noelle, dying meant freedom. Small as she was, she was _bigger_ when she wasn't in a metal box. She was red-haired and wild-eyed, could scramble up a tree in an instant and perched on the rim of her boat in a way that would have thrown anyone else overboard if they’d tried it. Taako sketched out a copy of his own map and, after a moment’s hesitation, added the shape of the little island with his house on it.

“I’ll show them everything when they get here,” she said while she watched Taako work, a huge grin on her face. He didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. “Every single thing.”

Taako found Johann the way most people in the Astral Plane did - he noticed the sound of a violin echoing through the streets and he followed it. The sound led him to a public square of a city without a name, where Johann stood on the edge of a fountain with a small crowd surrounding him. The concert wasn't planned; that wasn’t his speed, to plan big performances. If Johann had been chosen a path that didn’t include secrecy and mysterious organizations, he might have been what he was as now - a wandering artist who played anywhere and everywhere, for whoever would listen. He always had an audience.

"It's a lot," Johann told Taako once. The town was smaller, with brightly colored awnings blocking the sunlight from pounding down on the street. "Being remembered is after the fact; you don’t have to be there or do anything. It’s completely different when there’s an audience, watching you. I’m still getting used to that.” 

Conversations with Johann, like his little concerts for passerby, never lasted very long. He seemed restless, and it was obvious enough that he wasn’t comfortable staying in one place that Taako wondered how he’d managed to stay on the moon for so long. “I hear there’s a couple of fiddlers in your family,” he said, collecting his things and mind already racing ahead of him to wherever he was going next. “If they’re ever in the neighborhood, tell them I’d appreciate the accompaniment.” He turned toward the door. “Or maybe I’ll come by sometime.” And then Johann was gone again.

Taako was thinking about heading home from a city much like Goldcliff but much, much older when a kid with a hauntingly familiar smile fell into step next to him. “I’m not much of a gambler, but I’d bet my shoes that I know your name.”

“A pretty safe bet,” Taako said. He was recognized sometimes, since his face and name had been blasted across the multiverse to music. (Always with surprise, though, always with a “I thought elves lived longer than that,” and the appeal of fame had started to wane.) “And a really weird cold open. Was there something you wanted?”

He shrugged but he didn’t stop walking with Taako, and as Taako glanced over at him he couldn’t shake the feeling that something about the kid seemed familiar. “Not really. I just haven’t seen you around and I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m -“

“Don't I know you from somewhere?”

The kid stopped and thought for a moment before his eyes widened.

As it happened, Keats got that a lot. He looked like a younger version of his older siblings, and he was a happy, smiling, con artist of a kid until someone reminded him of that resemblance. 

"First people think they know me, then they realize why, and their faces get all sour. It’s always the same look," he'd say, scowling. "And then I have to apologize for my family _again_ . What am I even supposed to say? 'Yes I know they're awful, they're a terrible influence on each other and I wouldn't know what to do with them even if they weren't running around the countryside and torturing the locals. Sorry about your _vision_ and the _memory of your loving family_ , I'm sure losing those in a twisted game of chance didn't scar your remaining time alive much.' Where did they come up with that? They weren’t like that when I knew them."

He was barely as old as Angus when he died, and he wasn’t getting any older. And, for some reason, he’d decided Taako and Julia were worth following around absolutely everywhere. He refused to explain, and in time Taako stopped trying to shake him - only because Keats was exceptional at finding him again, anyway.

The first time Keats followed him all the way home, Taako hesitated at the door just for a moment before holding the door open and letting him inside. The usual cheeky grin widened into something more innocent and more genuine, and in time Keats opened up a little, too.

“I miss the caravans,” he confided once, sitting in a little curled heap on the front porch steps. “We were always kinda hungry and kinda tired, but we got to see _everything_ \- mountains and oceans and all of it. And when we’d stop at night and sit around the campfire, Edward would do magic tricks and Lydia would make up games.” He was quiet, not looking at Taako. “We were happy. I think I ruined it.”

Taako looked at the kid he’d never expected to care about - another kid he’d never expected to care about - and thought of the days he and Lup were that small. They’d been happy too, because they’d only ever needed each other. He doesn’t know who he would have become without her. “If you mean because you got sick, your siblings are bigger assholes than I gave them credit for.”

“Well, they haven’t come to visit, have they? Seems like they’re doing everything they can to avoid me.” 

Taako didn’t know what to say to that. Instead, he coaxed Keats up with a promise of dessert and let him stay the night. In the morning, a cheerful kid followed Taako out to the boat like a duckling.

* * *

Taako never knew how he found the tiny island for the first time. He was sure that he meant to go somewhere else, but when he landed on the beach of an old, empty fishing village with a tall cliff on one side, he tied the boat to the dock and walked through the quiet streets, up the path to the cliffside and past a temple. The door of a small, wooden house was open. He hesitated in the doorway, but a girl with long locs and a flower crown perched on her head looked over and beckoned him inside.

Her name was Lorelei, and she told him she'd been waiting to meet him. "I'm only sorry it wasn't sooner. It's hard to talk from this side, but I'm sure you know about that by now." Taako didn't know the reason for her interest - they couldn't have met in life with how long she claimed to have been in the Astral Plane, and she never answered any of his questions about it - but something about her face looked familiar. She was soft-spoken and gentle in most things, she loved his cooking and her singing voice was beautiful, and she never left her island.

"I'm the only one keeping this old rock floating anymore. I worry about what would happen if I left it... maybe it would be gone by the time I came back."

They were a strange pair; Lorelei wasn't the kind of person Taako would have chosen to spend much time with, under normal circumstances, and they shouldn't have had anything in common. She died young, of sickness, and after a life of service to the Raven Queen for reasons she didn't share. He'd spent the first moments of his afterlife making demands of her goddess. Something clicked, though - maybe they were both lonely, or death just smoothed the edges between people. Lorelei had a hidden, sharp cleverness, a quick wit that took Taako by surprise when it showed itself. She was honest even when he didn't want to hear it, and she expected the same from him.

“You really want to know what I think?” They were both too full of food to move, laying outside where wildflowers grew by the cliff.

“Would I have asked if I didn’t?” 

“I think you’re lonelier than I am. I think you stayed for a reason and you don’t know if your reason was worth the wait.”

She thought about it. “You might be right. You’re too perceptive for your own good.”

He snorted. “Not too perceptive to drown.”

And she laughed at his bitter humor like only someone who knew that bitterness could.

Taako didn't tell anyone about the little fishing village or Lorelei. She didn't ask him not to, exactly, but she didn't seem to want any other visitors - she was happy enough, she said, with the stories he told about his life and his afterlife. He could never find the island until Lorelei wanted to be found, and he never saw any other visitors.

"One of these days you're going to talk me into getting on a boat with you and leaving for good." 

Taako had shared the last of his stories that he had time for before he had to go, and was getting up from the rug on the hard, wooden floor. "What, because my husband makes embarrassing noises when he eats my food? That's the thing that hooks you, one reaper's inability to be appropriate at the dinner table?"

Lorelei shrugged. "I appreciate the little joys." She didn't get up to leave that night, though, just sat by the stove and watched Taako walk through the door.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are these chapters getting longer? I feel like these chapters are getting longer. It's not intentional, I promise, this was supposed to be a one-shot...

There was a question coming, and Taako probably wouldn't like it. He'd watched it growing in the way Kravitz looked at him all evening - like he was looking  _ for  _ something and coming up empty.

The islands were easier to explain, now; he knew more about them, and it was hard to deny the proof of Julia and Keats on the front step. That Kravitz had never heard of them before was simple enough to explain - most reapers wouldn’t bother with travel by boat when tearing a rift was so much faster, but only constructs of the Raven Queen permitted that kind of travel, limiting the options to the court, the Eternal Stockade, and the few specially-made islands like Taako’s. The best guess was that the rule was a failsafe. The reckless swinging of a scythe in mixed company wouldn’t hurt a soul, but tearing open a hole right next to a whole town of souls was a big enough draw that necromancers might be tempted to go looking for reapers. The islands could only be reached by boat.

"Julia’s house is the one she and Magnus never got to build, and ours is still standing, so, constructs. Unless there was a fire or something you haven’t told me about?"

"No, the house is still there." Kravtiz’ tone had been reluctant, and he’d quickly changed the subject. 

Taako usually made it back before any of his family on days when he traveled, but every so often the note would be gone and one or all of them would be sitting around the kitchen table. No one said anything about it, and there was a tension that Taako's family resolutely ignored until it faded away. Julia and Keats were welcomed warmly when they visited; Taako’s stories about what he did with his day, on the other hand, were met with noncommittal responses. Taako stopped sharing them. 

His family, sensing his unease, stopped sharing stories about the other side.

There wasn't much to talk about around the table at all, these days.

"Taako," Kravitz said when they were curled up on the couch together. Taako braced himself. "Are you happy here?"

It was a simple question, and a heavy one.  _ Happy _ was a lot to ask. The most he'd hoped for recently was a bit of peace and to stop thinking so much; anything more was slow and difficult work. "I'm... okay,” he said after a moment. “Things are better."

"Would you be happier on one of the islands?"

Taako turned to look at Kravitz, who was frowning and looking at the far wall instead of looking back at Taako. He was very still, suddenly, and Taako had the thought that he was also braced for an answer he probably wouldn't like. "Kravitz," Taako reached out and pulled his husband's face to look at him. "Babe. What are you really asking me, here?"

Kravitz let out a long breath, and to Taako's horror there were tears in the corners of his eyes. "I feel like I'm losing you, Taako." He didn't have to say  _ again _ \- it was obvious in his voice. "You look... more like you, after you've been away during the day. And I keep thinking that maybe this is what's supposed to happen? Maybe I've just been keeping you away from where you were supposed to be."

"Kravitz -"

"I think I'm hurting you again." He was smiling now, but the expression was twisted and  _ painful _ , and Taako wanted it gone. "Maybe I shouldn't hold on so tight, but I don't want to let go. I'm not ready yet."

Taako pulled Kravitz across the couch and into his arms. It was easy to do - Kravitz went without protest, and Taako held him close. "I'm not going anywhere, Krav." He hadn't felt the pain in the silence and the tension, and he hated that it had slipped by him. He hated that Kravitz had been struggling with doubts when he didn't need to be. "You're not hurting me, I'm just hurting."

"But the islands -"

Taako kissed the top of his head. "The house is too quiet when you're not in it. Feels bad."

He felt Kravitz nod solemnly. Taako didn't have to ask if he knew what Taako meant. Kravitz never went back to the other house unless he absolutely had to.

“You remember one of the first nights we were here? What I asked you?”

Kravitz’ arms snaked around him to hold him tight, the same way they had that night. “You asked if we needed to get married again. Since death had parted us.”

“And you said?”

“That death hadn’t parted us. That it wouldn’t.”

“It’s not going to. It’s  _ not _ . You might be the best thing that ever happened to me - you know how lucky I am, that I get to keep you now? Because  _ I _ know how lucky I am.”

They stayed just like that for a while. It had been too long since they held each other; Taako felt a warmth filling him that he hadn’t realized he’d started to lack. He could explore every island in the plane, but this one, with Kravitz in his arms, would always be home.

"When you have some free time, we should go together,” Taako broke the silence.

"Is that allowed?" Some of the tension had leaked out of his shoulders. His voice was hoarse with the tears that had managed to escape, and Taako rubbed his back. 

"Don't see why not. You'll just have to be patient and take the long way - no teleporting or dimensional rifts to get to date night." Kravitz chuckled. "I'm guessing that's what's up with Lup and Barry, too."

Kravitz shrugged. "Probably. It was... jarring to find the house empty. Lup burned a few of the notes."

Taako winced. "Maybe no more notes."

“Maybe no more notes.”

He sighed and held his husband a little tighter. “Even when I’m gone, I’ll come back for you. I promise, Krav.”

* * *

Lup showed up in his living room on her day off with an inexcusable amount of junk food and an expression of determination. "I'm here with the hot goss," she told him, in a tone that suggested nothing could be more vital than the distribution of hot goss. "If you want it," she added after, relenting.

"Sure." Taako wasn't sure at all.

They ended up on the couch, with Lup braiding and re-braiding his hair from behind him like when they were kids and neither of them could get the beginning just right on their own. It was soothing for him and grounding for her; they did this a lot in the weeks after Lup got her body back. 

"This weird shit where we have nothing to talk about has got to stop.” Taako didn’t say anything, and Lup sighed. “I know. Part of that’s on me.” Her hands stilled. “When we couldn’t find you… it was the first time since getting out that I couldn’t get to you.”

To call Lup  _ clingy _ in the days after her release would be inaccurate, but only in the sense that Lup couldn’t physically cling to anything. Instead she hovered, splitting her time between Barry and Taako as though she was afraid to lose sight of either of them. Taako had gotten used to Lup just showing up, sometimes only for a few seconds at a time, to make sure she could still find him.

It had been a while since she’d needed to do that. Taako wondered how many times she’d dropped by to check on him these days when he wasn’t around. There was a flip of guilt in the pit of his stomach.

“I wouldn’t leave you behind, Lup, not if I could help it.”

She took a deep breath and went back to braiding his hair. “I know. I  _ know _ that, and I keep telling myself that. It’s so fucking stupid, but… well, it feels like payback, doesn’t it? Not from you, not like that, but like fate is reminding me what I did to you and Barry.”

“Lup -“

He can hear the tears in her voice and how hard she was trying to hold them back. “You weren’t supposed to fucking  _ die _ , Taako. I wasn’t supposed to lose you. I think I forgot you could still be taken away and now sometimes you’re just not anywhere. And I hate it. And I hate that I did that to you, too.”

Taako turned around and pulled her close. “Some stupid shit happens when we’re alone.” Lup choked out a laugh. Then, quieter: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I know you didn’t want to. And as much as I want to hold onto you tighter because of it, I can’t. This is a good thing, Taako. I should be happy. The last thing I want is for you to just stay here and… stagnate.” Her voice had gotten softer, and he knew what she was thinking of. “So I want to hear about where you’re going when you’re not here, even when it hurts.” Lup extracted herself and motioned for him to turn around again. “And, if you’re up for it… I want to tell you what’s been going on where I go when I’m not here.”

She must have noticed when Taako stiffened, but she didn’t mention it. He didn’t even pretend that she was talking about work. “Thanks for the offer, really, but uh. I’m not looking for any extra torture today.” Taako tried to make his voice light, but a little too much sincerity slipped out.

Lup was quiet for a long moment, braiding, and he almost believed she’d let the matter drop. “Ignoring it won’t make it hurt less,” she finally told him. “Healing isn’t passive - not all of it. You and me have to put in the work.” Quietly, she asked if Kravitz had told him anything about Angus’s birthday party.

He hadn’t.

And when Lup started describing the day, he didn’t stop her. When the tears came, she held his hand.

* * *

In time, something settled. Taako’s center of gravity shifted - the house on the little island was  _ their _ house, not the copy, and what he did with his time wasn’t just filling the hours. The hurt wasn’t all-consuming.

Taako’s head stayed above water, and he could breathe.

"Babe. Between the two of us, I shouldn't be the one having an easier time getting on the boat." Kravitz grinned at him sheepishly from where he was still standing on the dock, and even the pretended impatience melted away as something in Taako softened. It had been too long since things had been easy with them; neither of them had noticed the distance that was starting to form until it was closing again.  _ That _ was not going to happen again - Taako had lost plenty already, and Kravitz would not be another casualty. "I swear on your mom I won't even push you off or anything."

"She's not my mom." The argument was half-hearted, worn down over years of repetition. Kravitz was paying more attention to inching closer than to his denial. "And you're not the part I'm worried about. I'd go anywhere with you, Taako, it's just..."

Just that he didn't think that the places Taako went to alone were meant for him. Kravitz had been making excuses since the very first trip, when Taako piled both Lup and Barry in the boat for their first tour of the islands. First it had been that the boat clearly couldn't take more weight, and then, when Julia reminded him that there was plenty of room in hers, that there was some urgent business at the Stockade he'd forgotten about. The reasons didn't get more creative from there, and Taako would almost have started taking it personally if Kravitz hadn't caved and explained one night after a particularly long and exhausting week of work.

"I'm here as a punishment, Taako," he'd said, curled up next to him in bed while Taako enjoyed having his (warm, always warm now) husband within easy reach. "There are... things I haven't earned. I didn't die a good death, like you or the people on those islands. If I didn't know about them already, there must be a reason."

The reason, Taako concluded, was that his husband worked too hard. And maybe, possibly, Kravitz was afraid of what he would find out on the sea. Taako saw him looking out the window at the water, sometimes, confused and anxious, as if he were looking for something that he wasn’t really sure he wanted to see. What he was looking for was a question he never did answer, and one that Taako didn’t push - he wasn’t sure Kravitz knew the answer, either. 

Besides, Kravitz would have been on the other side of a cell if the Raven Queen had wanted to continue his punishment. And Taako, who had spent plenty of lonely hours and knew the sting of isolation, was not a fan of allowing Kravitz to do that to himself. It was date night. They were going  _ out _ .

"It's just that we're gonna be late if you don't get on the boat, Kravitz." Taako held out a hand to help Kravitz board. "It's required by law that I show off my incredibly attractive husband to as many people as possible on the dance floor. How else will they know how jealous they should be?"

Kravitz grinned, but he didn't take the offered hand. "That's sweet, but I think they'll have plenty to be jealous of just from you. Are you sure you wouldn't have a better time without me?"

It was a stupid thought, and it earned the eye-roll it deserved... softened by the smile on Taako's face. "As if. You're the only one I want to dance with tonight."

Taako could see the resolve in Kravitz's eyes melting away as something soft took its place. Hell yeah, a whole plane and an entire death away and he still had it. If he could still make Kravitz look like that, they'd figure out everything else.

"I guess I'd better come with you, then," Kravitz said, and took Taako's hand.

The castle on the cliff and the ballroom it contained were like something from a storybook that Taako and Lup would pour over, when the possibility that they were secretly royalty was almost a given fact and not childhood dreaming. Globes of light floating near the ceiling gave the room a golden glow, and there was no similarities in the clothes the guests wore - there were styles spanning across countries and centuries, collected together in one place. Between the movement of fabric the pale marble floor was visible in pieces, and windows several stories high formed the wall overlooking the sea.

It was a breathtaking sight. Taako looked at Kravitz to see his husband’s face as he took it in, and his smile made Taako smile in turn.

Tonight wasn’t their first dance or even their first ball, but it felt like their first something. Maybe a first of their new life, here in a new place, with so many differences but still familiar and warm. They swept across the floor and when no one protested or demanded to know why a reaper was with them, the last of Kravitz’ tension eased.

“I didn’t know a place like this was possible.” The current of the dancing carried them along, around and between everyone else. Kravitz couldn’t stop looking around them, and the honest, awed delight on his face drew Taako in just a little bit closer to him. 

“It’s possible, babe. This is real and I want you to see all of it. I want to be the one who shows you everything.”

Kravitz stopped them, gently, in the middle of the room while the dancers around them twirled by easily. He looked like he was in love. He looked happy. Taako wondered if he looked anywhere near that happy, and he thought he must with the way Kravitz was smiling because how could he be anything else?

“I want to show you something, too.” Kravitz lifted a hand to Taako’s temple.

The room around them shifted. The people around them, and Kravitz, were… not people, and were. More globes of light, Taako thought, but while the ones collected near the ceiling were there to illuminate the space, they were entirely unnecessary in the light of the dancers. He thought, briefly, of the light of creation in pieces between the Starblaster crew, broken from the pure white into color with the power separated.

Souls. These were souls, without the construct and illusion of physicality. Colorful and bright, they flickered as they danced in slow and gentle circles. Taako glanced down, and what he felt was him wasn’t him at all - only a phantom memory of the way he used to be. His senses were all one sense, the perception of himself and everything else in a kind of knowing that felt too big to contain or comprehend. He was infinite. He was a delicate slip of existence that could be torn if handled too roughly.

Taako didn’t think he could exist in that knowing forever; it was too big, too easy to be lost. But when his focus narrowed again and Kravitz’ smiling eyes were waiting for him, when the people in the room all snapped back into place, he was left with one impression.

The colors of the Astral Plane were from the souls it held. When he could see the lights shifting, he wasn’t alone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note! There is the implication of animal death in this chapter - nothing graphic, but if you would prefer to skip that section, I'm including a little summary in the note at the end of the chapter.

"So," Lorelei said, smiling in a way that was both happy and resigned, "It seems like things are calming down for you."

Taako had just passed along the story of Magnus' truly irresponsible amount of dogs and what happened when he brought them to the moon base for a visit; he'd had almost as hard a time getting the whole thing out as Lup, barely biting back laughter long enough to get to the best parts. "I don't know about 'calming down,'" he said. It was hard to call it that when there was more going on around him than there'd been before, but something in him felt... more solid. "Feels less like I'm waiting for something."

She nodded. "You're healing." Her expression was mixed. "I'm going to make a guess that you might not be around as much, now."

"I don't come here because you're a cure-all." Lorelei gave good advice, but if she was a medicine she'd be the kind that he wasn't inclined to take - bitter and burning, effective but with a taste that wouldn't leave for the rest of the afternoon. That wasn’t what she was to him.

"No, but you have more to do."

"I don't come because I'm bored, either."

She looked at him, head cocked to one side in curiosity. "Why do you come, then?"

They were getting uncomfortably close to feelings, and Taako had never been very good with those. "Why do you let me?"

Lorelei grinned. "That's a good question. Maybe _I'm_ bored." Her grin faded. "Before you say it, it's still a no."

Taako had never been able to talk her onto a boat. He told her about the places he’d seen, was sure he’d seen a spark of interest, but she never admitted to it. Taako shrugged. "You'll change your mind one day." He didn’t know that for sure, but maybe if he said it enough they’d both believe it. "And for the record, I'm not gonna just stop showing up because I have better things to do, Lori. Fuck."

She didn't seem convinced, but she didn't contradict him. "So kind to a woman in her twilight years."

"You're younger than me."

"You depend too much on your eyesight." And something about her did seem old, not that it mattered any - age was a hard thing when people could look the age they preferred. "I don't mean to say that you'll forget about me. Just that maybe you should, if I'm taking time away from your family." She looked ready to let him go, and older than he'd ever seen her just around her eyes. Not the first time she'd let go of something, Taako guessed, and maybe that said something about why she stayed alone.

Taako leaned back in his chair. "Too bad you're already stuck with me, then."

"A real shame." When he glanced at her, she didn't seem especially disappointed.

* * *

It was late. Taako had taken Kravitz out dancing again, and afterwards they'd wandered the streets of the almost-familiar Neverwinter until their feet ached and all they could think about was sleep. Kravitz was out as soon as his head hit the pillow and Taako was close behind, drifting in that warm and comfortable place just before sleep where almost nothing could reach him.

He heard a voice, as clearly as if it belonged to someone in the room with him. "It's been a while. I'm sorry about that - I've just been busy. Which maybe sounds bad, but I don't think you'll mind when you see what I've managed to do." Taako knew the voice; it was too familiar to startle him. "I don't know if you can hear me - Lup never says for sure - so I won't spoil the surprise. I just wanted to say that I miss you, sir."

Taako sighed and turned his head to the empty room. "Miss you too, Ango." And then he was asleep, with no understanding that the voice couldn't hear the reply and no memory of the words in the morning.

* * *

Kravitz was late getting home from work ("Should've been home an hour ago, probably," Barry told him before grabbing some snacks and heading off to wherever it was he was heading next), and when he did finally step through the rift, his expression proclaimed both guilt and firm resolution.

Taako raised an eyebrow. Kravitz took a deep, fortifying breath. Before he could begin whatever carefully prepared speech he was about to launch into, Taako noticed that he had a little bundle of _something_ in his arms. "What’cha got there, babe?"

Kravitz deflated a bit. "I, uh. I didn't know if this was _okay_ but she was the last one and she was _staring_ at me and I couldn't leave her." He walked over and handed the bundle to Taako; it was mostly blanket with something only slightly heavier inside. He unfolded a corner and found the tiniest face peeking up at him. It mewed at him, and he knew why Kravitz couldn’t leave her wherever he’d found her.

Taako looked at Kravitz. "Is she...?" He nodded, and Taako stroked the kitten's tiny head. "You're here too early, too." The kitten - black with splotches of white - just mewed again softly, yawned an enormous yawn for such a tiny creature, and rested her head on the blanket. "And we can just keep her?"

"Of course. Someone in the court had a whole box, and she was the last one." He reached over and scritched the kitten's head. "She'll stay this small, and she doesn't technically need to eat but she'll think she does." Kravitz hesitated. "I... wasn't sure if this was too soon. But it seemed like too good an opportunity."

"And she looked at you with those little eyes." Kravitz smiled, completely unashamed of his weakness. 

Was it too soon? Maybe. Maybe not. The cats hadn't come with them - of course they hadn’t, why would they, but it was something Taako didn’t think about until later and it was just one more thing to hurt - and they were given to good homes when it was clear that Kravitz wouldn't do well with returning, over and over, to an almost-empty home. One was with Lucretia; however else Taako felt about her, he knew he could trust her with taking care of his pet. The other was with Angus, who was, as Taako heard it, inconsolable at the prospect of Taako and Kravitz' house being sold to a stranger. “I don’t know if it’s enough, but maybe it’ll help.” Kravitz didn’t seem entirely convinced, and Taako didn’t know how to ask if Angus seemed better. 

If he’d been asked while he was alive, Taako wouldn’t have believed that losing his pets would cut that deeply, but he still looked up and expected to see them curled up on the furniture, still expected little noises of inquiry when he left the room to do something, and it was still an unpleasant lurch in his gut to know that he wouldn't see them again. Not for a while.

He looked down at the kitten. "Well, we can't just leave her out in the cold now that you've brought her home with you - we’re surrounded by water on all sides, where would she even go," Taako said, with a reluctance that didn't sound very reluctant at all. Kravitz was beaming, and Taako rolled his eyes. "Should’ve known you’d find another stray."

* * *

They were still on the same wavelength, even after everything. Taako was sitting on the beach again when he heard her, idly throwing stones into the sea. Almost the same spot as last time, too, which might be eerie if Taako was awake enough to care.

"Do you ever think about the world with the flowers?" He didn't know if it was late where she was - it was late in the Astral Plane, but who could say if time moved differently there - but Lucretia sounded tired. She might’ve forgotten to sleep again; she used to do that on the Starblaster, staying up all hours writing notes, and it didn't seem like the habit had improved any after her stint as the Director. 

"I remember," he answered uselessly.

"Nobody likes to talk about that one," she continued, as if this was a conversation and not a captive audience. "Not really anyone's favorite year, I guess. But it's funny - I always seem to think about the day we found the little lake before I think about any of the rest of it."

The world with the flowers had been beautiful. They'd landed the Starblaster in a meadow, with the Light only a few miles away. Before the retrieval, before anyone even considered who would go, there were a few days of play where they'd touched down - a breather, some bonding time. And when that became too much for Taako and Lucretia, they'd ended up retreating to the same place, a small mountain within a day's walk of the ship. That used to happen a lot - Taako and Lucretia often found themselves in the same place when they needed quiet away from everyone else.

The top of the mountain, if it could even be called a mountain, caved in and formed a smooth bowl. The water in that bowl was a gorgeous blue, so clear and perfect that they'd both hesitated to touch it. Eventually, though, Lucretia put aside the little satchel with her notebooks and Taako abandoned half-made plans for a nap, and they both spent the afternoon in the water.

"It was a good day," she said softly. "We had a lot of good days in that lake, but I think that first day with just the two of us was my favorite."

She didn't tell the rest of the story, and she didn't need to - Taako could remember what happened next. He'd walked over the lip of that little mountain one day and saw everything burning. The fields were reduced to ash and dust, and there were no more flowers. Some of their family was gone, too, and the worst of it was that there was no one to blame. It was just what happened when the seasons changed in that place: everything died, not from the cold but from the fire.

"Everything else about that year is a blur of misery. I should hate that memory, but I don't. It's still something worth keeping, even if it's a little tarnished around the edges." She sighed. Taako threw another rock as far as he could and waited. "I wonder, sometimes, if you have anything like that left in you about me. I wonder if there's still something good, even though I burned the rest."

"It still hurts," Taako said to no one. He threw another rock. "But you didn’t burn everything."

* * *

"Have you ever had someone you would do anything for?"

The question, posed while Taako was half-asleep in the long grass of the seaside cliff, was an unexpected departure from whatever they had been talking about before. He wasn't sure where Lorelei was going with the thought. The question was just as likely to have a point behind it as it was to be some kind of thought experiment.

"Anything is a lot of potential things." He knew the answer already, of course. On darker days, Taako had thought about what it would be like if Lup was here instead of him, or if they didn't have Lup's tie to the Raven Queen to keep them within reach of each other. "For my sister, probably." If the circumstances demanded it Taako thought he might tear apart the Astral Plane for her, if that was even possible.

Lorelei smiled. "So much in common," she said, but not to him and with no explanation. He knew that tone; he could bother her about it for hours, but she wasn't going to elaborate.

"How about you? Anyone you'd break all of the rules for?" He sat up, now fully awake - nothing like unpleasant hypotheticals to drive away any thought of a nap.

She thought about it. "If you'd asked me that when I was young, I would have said yes. I would have done anything for my brother. Sounds so noble, doesn't it?" Lorelei sighed. "A person can get themselves in trouble with that kind of thinking. You can try to help so much that you hurt."

"Speaking from experience?"

She smiled, somehow bitter and laughing at once. "I'm floating in a sea of good intentions." She stood up, brushing off dirt from her dress, and helped pull Taako to his feet. "Maybe that's why I've been thinking about it, so I could pass on a little bit of wisdom - it's a good thing to have, even here." She looked at Taako seriously, holding onto his arm. "If you’re going to do something for someone else, don’t make it _anything_ . Do _good_ for them, even if it doesn't feel like enough. Sometimes that’s worth more."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kravitz brings home a stray kitten, Taako thinks about their cats, they (of course) decide to keep the kitten.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note! A warning for necromancy and the unpleasantness that comes with it.
> 
> (And the chapters just keep getting longer and longer...)

"Babe, just a reminder that there's a perfectly good, perfectly _empty_ bed upstairs." It was late, and Kravitz was home for the evening. The paperwork could've waited for the next day, but instead it was taking up room on their table. Taako glared at it over his mug, but it didn't go anywhere. "We could be in it. We could be _sleeping_ right now."

Kravitz smiled at him, clearly exhausted, from the other side of the expanse of papers. "I'll soon be done with this, love. If you're tired, you should go to bed - I'll be right behind you."

Taako narrowed his eyes. "You'd better be five minutes behind me or I'm tossing that into the sea."

Taking the threat seriously, Kravitz considered the paperwork. "Fifteen minutes."

"Ten."

"Taako -"

"And you can be the little spoon."

Kravitz could never say no to being the little spoon; he sighed and admitted defeat, while Taako grinned and walked around the table to kiss the top of his husband's head before heading upstairs to their bedroom. Kravitz might say he didn't technically need the sleep, but Taako still felt tired at night. There was no point in either of them being miserably exhausted because _technically_ exhaustion couldn't cause lasting damage anymore.

And _fuck_ was Taako tired. Keats had been over to play with the new kitten - not that he needed the excuse with how often he showed up on Taako's doorstep out of the blue - and Julia stopped by just in time to run into Lup. Barry popped in long enough to ask Taako to ask Kravitz a question about the legality of a resurrection spell that maybe, possibly, used just a few necromancy techniques while Kravitz stopped by long enough to answer Barry (via Taako) that any resurrection spells were on thin fucking ice right now with as many necromancy books as Barry had slipped out of the archive in the past month. Magnus spent the whole afternoon running Taako through the details of the new training routine he was trying, blissfully unaware that Taako was trying to talk to Keats, Lup, and Julia (and occasionally Barry with increasingly questionable inquiries) at the same time. The house was finally quiet, the bed was calling, and Taako was not impressed with the fact that he was not already sleeping.

Taako caught himself on the doorway of their room. A sudden wave of dizziness had made him sway dangerously forward as he walked, and he might have ended up in a heap on the floor if he hadn't reached out for the door frame. The day must have been catching up to him; he hadn't felt this way since dying, but it circled back to the "just because sleep isn't required doesn't mean it isn't suggested" thing he'd been trying to convince Kravitz of.

He gave himself a few seconds until his mind felt steadier, and let go of the door frame.

Something in Taako's chest _pulled_.

The mug crashed to the floor.

And then there was pain. 

Taako couldn't breathe around the pulling, the _pulling_ like something reaching into him and trying to yank him out of himself through his chest. He could hear a gasping, choking sound and he didn't know if he was standing anymore or if he was in the same room -

There was a table under his back, cold and hard, but the sensation was nothing in the face of the cold in him and around him everywhere. He ached with it, trapped in it, with a spreading, crawling sensation of being stuck somewhere he _shouldn't_ , of being encased in something awful and being sewn into the lining of his new prison with pin-pricking needles and unfamiliar words from somewhere he couldn't see -

He wasn't on the floor but he was limp, and he could hear a voice he knew asking him questions he couldn't answer. It was warm but he couldn't feel it, the arms were familiar but he couldn't feel them, he was a ghost and he was fading -

Whatever he was in was too heavy for him, weighing him down to the table. The voice had stopped it's chanting and was talking to him, asking him different questions than the one from a moment ago and somewhere else. How did he feel? Could he please wake up now? Everything would be okay, things had been put back the way they ought to be. He just needed to wake up, sir, please -

Another voice, closer, begged him not to go. He would stay if he knew how -

Tugged back, tied in place, and he wished he could be angry but the voice was sad and he couldn't be angry at that voice -

In two places at once, Taako heard a booming voice call out, loud and soft and everywhere, yelled above him and beside him and enough to shake two planes. **“Your transgressions against the bond between life and death have been witnessed its caretaker, the Raven Queen. You will be held accountable before her for what you have done.”** He knew the voice and he didn't; it was one and many.

And then, Taako was nowhere at all.

* * *

In time, the darkness stopped holding him under and let him up to the surface to breathe. The middle space, between where he was and where he wasn’t, didn’t look much different than having his eyes closed. Everything around him was darkness.

Almost everything - there was a rhythmic flash of silver at the corner of his vision. He turned to look and caught sight of a delicate sewing needle, as long him and still so thin; the hand that held it was incomprehensible. He couldn’t see any thread but he could feel the needle, painless and somewhere to his left - where he wasn’t but where he was. The illusory perception of himself as a being limbs and eyes and a physical form started to dissolve into the reality of soft, gossamer soul… torn in places from more unwieldy tools. The needle was nothing like Istus’ that pulled together the fate of everyone and everything; this one was for him, sinking in and out through everything he was.

“Don’t look, my child.” Suddenly Taako was small, a child sitting in the dark while the Raven Queen sat behind him, brushing and braiding his hair like Lup always used to. “You do not need to see. I will make it better.”

“What happened?”

He felt a gentle kiss on top of his head. “A kindness gone wrong,” she told him, and he held still while the mother brushed his hair and the goddess sewed his soul back together.

* * *

The bed felt too empty when Taako woke up, slow and muddled. He reached to the side where Kravitz usually slept and found no Kravitz and not a much bed as he was expecting. Taako must have shifted in his sleep, then, and if he concentrated he could remember little flashing of a particularly fucked up dream; maybe that was what woke him. That and the distinct lack of husband, which Kravitz was going to hear about...

"You’re awake, thank _fuck_ ," Taako heard someone next to him say, and he blinked his eyes open.

It was Lup, and they were not in Taako's room. The room they were in wouldn't have fit in Taako's house, but that was something to think about later, after he had gotten rid of the expression on Lup’s face. He reached out to her, and even that small movement filled him with a bone-deep ache. He groaned. "Lup? You okay?"

She didn't look okay - she looked like she hadn't slept and probably hadn't moved from that spot in a while. "Am _I_ okay? Ko, I'm fine." She sat down on the side of his bed and held the hand he still had stretched towards her. "How do you feel? Anything... anything weird?"

Lup was skirting around what she really wanted to ask, but Taako couldn't guess the real question; he was _so_ tired for someone who'd just woken up. He felt like he could sleep for a millennia. "Achy, mostly. Really… really tired. Why am I here?" The room was ornate, but understated. Classy. He recognized the decor from the _many_ rooms of all kinds in the Raven Queen's court. 

Lup didn't answer immediately. Something painful crossed her face and she squeezed Taako's hand; he tried to do the same and even that hurt, and he didn’t think Lup missed how feeble his attempt was. It couldn’t be anything good. "Someone tried bringing you back to life. Sort of a resurrection, I guess, but with too much necromancy thrown in for it to be legal." The hand holding his was almost too tight. "Kravitz brought you here. He wouldn't let go until he was sure that you wouldn't slip all the way to the other side once he did."

Taako remembered... a few things. Mostly, he had a vague sense of how it _felt_ to be forced into a body, and it was a memory that he was trying to avoid. "Oh. Is that all?" 

She laughed, a choked sound that surprised them both. "Yeah. Yeah, that’s all.” Lup was crying again and fuck, that part was supposed to be _over_. They were doing better now. In what fucking world was it fair that they were here again? Taako needed to say something, but he was so tired, and the hurt was growing the longer he was aware of it. Lup leaned close. “Sleep if you need to, Ko, but just. But just don’t go anywhere, please. Please.”

He didn’t want to leave her, but the ache dragged him down into the dark again.

When Taako woke up the next time, he was in the same bed with something warm wrapped around him from his left. A glance told him that was because Kravitz was in bed with him, clinging like a squid. Taako's movement had apparently woken him up, because Kravitz blinked in confusion before squeezing Taako tighter.

"Morning, babe."

Kravitz kissed his forehead. "Closer to midnight, actually." He was right - the shifting color from the window was a dark indigo instead of one of the lighter colors of morning. "How'd you sleep?"

"Like the dead," Taako said with a grin, and Kravitz's chuckle was genuine if a little forced. "It was your turn to be little spoon, though. Now I owe you."

"I look forward to cashing in." The gentle smile faded as Kravitz quietly examined Taako's face. "Still feeling achy?"

"Not so much." It was less of a 'oh god why does everything hurt why won’t it stop' ache and leaning more towards 'you did yard work all day and that was a _mistake_ ' ache. Both had been unfamiliar to Taako since dying; physical pain of any kind wasn't a frequent feature in the afterlife. Taako shifted in bed to face Kravitz. "How're you holding up, my guy?"

Kravitz made a valiant effort at looking okay, but he must have known that Taako would see right through him; the expression dropped. "Better? Now that I've seen you awake and talking... better." And then, under his breath, he muttered "I fucking hate necromancy."

"Did you catch the guy?" Oh, and _that_ expression was enough for Taako to pause, suspicious. That was not a good face. That did not promise good things. "What aren't you telling me?"

Kravitz seemed conflicted. “Any chance we could talk about this when you’re, I don’t know, not bedridden anymore? You need rest.”

“I could get up and row myself home if that would convince you.” Taako made a half-hearted attempt to wriggle free, but Kravitz didn’t take the offer, choosing instead to wrap himself around Taako tighter as it to restrain him.

“Taako, you need to know that... that he didn't realize what he was actually _doing_. That's not an excuse and he'll still be punished, but I don't think any of us realized how hard he was taking all of it…”

Taako didn’t say anything, just kept looking at Kravitz and waiting. _Just do it_ , he thought. _Just say his name._

"It was Angus. Those questions he's been asking Barry weren't just innocent curiosity."

Somehow, Taako already knew. Maybe he recognized the voice or maybe Angus was just the one person left who both would and could pull something like that off. It didn’t make a difference; a correct guess didn’t keep his heart from plummeting down in his chest. It didn’t stop the little pang of hurt that _Angus_ would do this to him, whether he meant to or not.

It didn’t stop the worry.

Taako sighed. "Fuck, Ango, what were you thinking?" He wasn’t, was the answer to that. Any thinking the kid had done was driven by what he’d been feeling. Too many near-misses, Taako thought. Too many close calls, and maybe now Angus thought the rules didn’t have to apply if you were smart enough to break them. "Please tell me you didn’t toss him in ghost jail."

"We didn't toss him in ghost jail."

"Good. He's too tiny for ghost jail. He'd slip right through the bars." Taako had been to the Eternal Stockade before, before he'd died, and while it wasn't a torture chamber, the thought of Angus McDonald in one of the cells was enough to make Taako's stomach turn. 

"That's not how... _any_ of that works..."

"What are you going to do to him?" The question came out heavier than Taako had intended, and it hung in the air between them. 

Kravitz looked deeply unhappy, either because he'd hoped Taako wouldn't ask or he didn't like the thought of Angus' punishment. Maybe both. "We haven't decided yet. I say 'we' but really, the choice will be up to the Raven Queen.”

Taako buried his face into Kravitz' neck. How the fuck did they get _here?_ Angus could’ve used those brains on anything else, but he had to find the most dangerous thing and fling himself towards it; if he'd fucked up the entire rest of his life on this one chance (and he was young, that was a lot of time left), Taako would fucking disown him. Necromancy? Did he think he could keep this from the _three fucking reapers_ in the family, or did he really think he wouldn’t have to? 

Could anyone have changed his mind, if they’d said something different to him or kept him better distracted? There wasn’t anyone who could answer that question. There wasn't much he could do now, either.

"Think the queen will remember that he's just a kid who wasn't coping well, when it's time for sentencing?" The question was muffled, Taako's face still halfway hidden.

Kravitz seemed to hear it anyway, putting a hand on the back of Taako's head and holding him close. "She usually does." He ran his hand through Taako's hair, and Taako relaxed. "You should get some more rest. You'll have to heal again before we can go home."

Taako didn't need much convincing - in minutes he was out again, and his sleep was free of dreams.

* * *

“If you have something to say, might as well come out with it. I don’t get much more ‘captive audience’ than I am right now.” Barry flinched, shooting Taako a guilty, caught look from the corner of the room where he’d been pretending to do… something, and Taako smirked. Barry had always been bad at hiding things from the twins.

There'd been something on his mind for a while and it was obvious, with the way he'd linger after Kravitz and Lup left the room only to suddenly remember somewhere else he had to be, or how he'd open his mouth only to slam it shut after a second of hesitation. Barry wasn't subtle at the best of times, but it was getting worse the longer he struggled with his words.

Taako didn't understand _why_. It had been a long time since Barry was so skittish around him, and he didn’t like it. He was too tired to dance around the fact that his brother was reluctant to talk to him.

“Use your words, Barold. Why do you look like a criminal about to confess a crime?”

He wandered over reluctantly, and though Taako had mostly been joking about the confession, Barry did look like a man who was facing some inevitable punishment. If it was more necromancy Taako was absolutely going to lose his goddamn mind. There wasn’t much he could _do_ about it besides throw some pillows and yell, but he would take what he could get.

Barry sat down next to the bed. He fidgeted with his hands. Finally, he looked at Taako. “I should have noticed. Those questions were too specific; I could have stopped him while the plan was still barely a thought in his head, but I never guessed…”

That was the problem - none of them ever guessed.

Angus had been working on his plan for a while - long enough to grow a new body in one of Barry's tanks, illusioned to look empty, and to design his own spell using bits and pieces from others in the hope that his own creation wouldn't be illegal… technically. It was impressive stuff, and it had landed Angus in a world of trouble. Even the horrifying experience of hearing the Raven Queen's judgment layered with Kravitz' voice hadn't convinced Angus that what he did was wrong - from what his family told him, Angus insisted to the queen's face that holding onto Taako was unfair and against the wishes of fate. It was the stupidest thing Taako had ever known Angus to do, and he was kind of proud of him for it.

It was Lup who'd changed his mind. She didn’t tell Taako the specifics of what that conversation was like; he just knew that the kid was distraught, again, and was left to wonder how many more times he would be responsible for accidentally hurting Angus. 

The punishment would probably be community service - there were a lot of ghosts still drifting in the court who could use help settling unfinished business, and what Angus needed now was something to keep him occupied. It sounded like a good fit to Taako. He remembered, in a hazy sort of way that someone might remember a dream, the days of drifting around the unfamiliar rooms, always wet and cold and lost. It wouldn’t have hurt things to have a smiling face to talk to, back then.

"I don't think school was enough to take his mind off things," Barry said, bringing Taako back to the here and now. "I thought the necromancy questions were like... puzzles or something, to keep himself busy. I thought he knew better than to actually use any of those books." The books were locked away again, and Angus had been chastised by everyone in his family with one exception.

That was kind of the point and the problem, all in one.

“But the worst thing, Taako? The worst part? When I heard what happened, just for a second I felt… like _I_ should have been the one to try.” He was shaking his head before Taako could say anything to that. “It wouldn’t have gone any better, it would have been a mistake, but… I never did anything. I knew a dozen ways to get you out of here from day one and I never even tried.”

Barry looked… guilty, and Taako couldn’t understand it. “Yeah? I mean, no regrets about that from me.”

There was silence. Barry wasn’t looking at Taako anymore. “If I… if we’re really brothers, shouldn’t I have done everything I could think of? Shouldn’t I have broken rules for you, tried whatever I could think of?”

Taako waited until Barry glanced at him, and he smiled. “Come on, Barrold. You and I both know there are things people can’t undo.”

“Maybe I could have. What if I could have done what Angus couldn’t?”

“Then I’d be stuck in a body that doesn’t fit anymore, living half a life for who knows how long.” Barry flinched, but he didn’t deny the accuracy of Taako’s prediction. “You didn’t, because you know better - you know me better. Comes with knowing someone for a hundred years… and being brothers, I guess, if you wanna call it that.”

Barry laughed, relaxing the way he was supposed to be with his family, and one more broken piece slipped into place.

* * *

Healing felt a lot like waiting, though Kravitz did his best to explain the process of binding a soul to the Astral Plane after unbinding it from somewhere else. "He means the fresh body Ango whipped up for you to use," Lup interjected. "Boy genius sewed you in good; he's got a future with hand stitching, if the stitching consists of illegal magic."

Staying in the court this time was a far cry from Taako's last experience - Kravitz, Lup, and Barry were around to hover from the very beginning, and Taako wasn't fighting off shock and grief. The other reapers were good company - a rambunctious group, which said something about the queen and the company she preferred to keep - and prone to throw any semblance of professionalism out of the window when baked goods were at stake.

Taako had visitors, too. Julia came by often and they people watched, guessing the deaths of passing souls. "I was here for a while, too," she commented. "Same reason as you - waiting to be found. I had to stay in bed the whole time, but I knew I wouldn't be stuck for long." She grinned. "Magnus would've kept looking as long as it took, no doubt about it. And I _felt_ it, the minute he saw the scarf." Julia touched the piece of fabric absently. "So I keep it on, just in case he needs any help looking for me next time."

Noelle brought cider and news from the islands. Keats brought card games and clever magic tricks that his siblings taught him. Angus' grandfather stopped by, too, with a stack of books containing ghost stories and a wink.

There was only one notable absence, and Taako wasn't surprised to find her face missing from the rest.

Finally, it was time to go home; Taako was looking forward to his own bed and cuddling with a tiny, ghostly kitten who hadn't received nearly enough attention lately, and he had promises for visits just as soon as he and Kravitz were settled in again. He almost didn't notice the other boat docked at the island's little pier.

He noticed her as soon as he saw her on the porch, though, swaying gently on the porch swing. Lorelei looked the same as always, with a simple summer dress and a flower crown perched on her head, and her long braids catching the sunlight. She looked nervous, but happy, and something that he should have seen the first time he met her was so obvious in her face now, in a different place where they weren’t alone. Taako looked up at Kravitz; the family resemblance was unmistakable. 

When he looked at her she shook her head subtly. _Not yet_ , her face told him. _That's a story for another day_.

She stood when they got to the step. Kravitz hung back a little. It didn't seem like he recognized her and it didn't seem like that mattered to Lorelei; she was beaming, and everything that had seemed old in her before was wiped away. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've seen you?"

"I don't know, but it looks like I've been gone long enough to miss the end of an era." They laughed, and Taako coaxed Kravitz up the steps with him. "This is Lorelei; she doesn't get out much." They shook hands, and both of them seemed to relax just a little - like something they'd both been waiting for had finally happened.

Kravitz invited her in for lunch; Lorelei looked as if she’d just been welcomed home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been waiting to share this chapter since I started the fic! :D Just one more chapter after this!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry for the delay - first week of classes had me busier than usual, and this was the chapter that had the least written beforehand, so I gave myself a little more time to make sure it was a good ending. I hope it is!
> 
> A couple of notes before we wrap things up:
> 
> First I want to extend a very sincere thank you! I knew from the start that this story idea was a little unusual and I wasn't sure if I would have much of an audience for this one. I went for it anyway because I'd gotten very fond of the story by then, and I'm so glad so many of you took a chance on it!
> 
> Second, I've been reading all of your comments and there's been some curiosity about a few things I just didn't have a place for in the fic. I don't make any promises, but if there's something from this au you'd still like to know more about, feel free to let me know - I might a one-shot separately from the fic!

It was a quiet night in the Astral Plane, as most of them were; the shifting colors of the souls' influence dappled the sky and the sea with patterns of deep maroon, and the lights twinkling from all directions spun slowly in circles around each other. It was peaceful on a little island that, currently, only housed one house, one couple, and one kitten.

The couple was on the porch swing, sitting curled up together. It had been a busy evening for a group of dead people - it seemed to Taako that it was harder _not_ to have the house full these days. There was almost always someone underfoot, or on their way, or dragging Taako and Kravitz to the boats headed somewhere else. The opportunity to spend time with just Kravitz and no one else, with nothing to do and nowhere to go, was a precious rarity.

And his only chance to ask.

"Kravitz, if I asked you to break a rule for me, what would you say?"

Kravitz didn't answer for a moment, then turned and raised an eyebrow. "A lot of things, including a gentle but firm reminder of the last time you were caught up in rule-breaking."

Taako resolutely ignored the look he was getting. "I mean, fair. But that's not the kind of rule I mean." He chanced a look up at his husband; all things considered, the look on Kravitz' face _could_ be worse."It's a small thing, and just the once."

He sighed, and it sounded promisingly like a 'I'm not going to like it, but I'm probably going to do what you want' sigh. "Tell me what you have in mind, and I'll think about it."

* * *

"How is he?"

Taako hadn't meant to ask the question; Lup already looked worn from dealing with an entire cult of arrogant asses, and he could bet that a status report on Angus McDonald was the last thing she felt like sharing. His name hadn’t come up often between the two of them, lately.

But the question was out anyway, and Taako hadn’t heard much of anything from anyone since leaving the court - including Angus, which gave him a sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach.

Lup, who had thrown herself down heavily on the couch next to him, gave him an unimpressed look. “Hello to you, too. I’m doing great, thanks for asking. Definitely didn’t just come from a harrowing mission involving lots of nastiness and necromancy.”

He patted her head gently with an expression of exaggerated sympathy and she snorted out a laugh, unable to keep up the facade of annoyance.

“Okay, fine. They were pathetic and good for stress relief, and I spent most of the day with Ango after I cleaned them up, are you proud of your clever deduction?” She sighed. “He’s better. Hell of a call having him solve cold cases for the queen - I knew he was good at the detective thing, but he is _good_ at the detective thing.”

“He’s a smart kid.”

”Too smart, sometimes. And not smart enough, others.”

That was true. But he was a kid, after all - weren’t they supposed to think they were invincible, that the mistakes they made wouldn’t leave lasting damage?

Lup wasn’t looking at him. “He’s scared to talk to you. That… might be my fault.”

“Did you tell him I’m okay?”

“Yeah, a couple dozen times, but that doesn’t really undo the first conversation, you know?” She melted a little more into the couch, sinking down and resting her head against the back. Thinking better of it a second later, she shifted so her head could lean on Taako’s shoulder instead. “Pretty sure he’s scared of me, too. Pretty sure he’s scared of what he’s capable of.”

Taako thought for a while. “I don’t know how to fix that,” he finally admitted.

“Probably just needs time - that’s what seems to work around here,” she replied, and he knew she was thinking of the long hours in the court. “But I’ll keep trying. We’ll get there.”

Taako shifted an arm around her shoulders, and she snuggled in closer. “And how’re you doing?”

She shrugged, and her silence felt painfully honest. “Okay. You left again, but you came back so. I’ll get there.”

“I’ll be here.”

“I know.”

* * *

Punishment in the afterlife was rarely eternal. Even the stockade with its ominous, threatening name only housed a handful of souls deemed too dangerous for contact with anyone else. There was always a reason for the Raven Queen's decisions, an end goal in mind with more substance than coaxing regret.

On the day that the punishment for Angus began, one began to unravel for Kravitz.

Taako saw it happen, in their kitchen early in the morning. Kravitz and Lorelei were the ones cooking for once, doing their best to pool their knowledge after years without proper practice.

"Why do I have to actually go through the steps? I pull all of my cooking straight out of the pantry when I'm at home."

"It's about the heart, Lorelei - it's about the _soul_." If the gleeful grin on Taako's face was any indication, it was a lot more about the promised hilarity of watching the attempts. “If you really can’t make bread from scratch, conjured is fine, but I will be able to _taste_ the difference.”

“He will,” Kravitz agreed while doing something terrible to the flour. “Conjuring never gets it quite right, anyway - I tried making my mama's spice cake that way and it was a crime against her memory." For a moment, the words didn’t register; for a moment, no one seemed to catch the implication of what Kravitz said. And then he stopped what he was doing and turned, confused. "I... what?"

Lorelei and Taako were both staring; there was the sense that a line was being crossed, between the way things were and the way they would become - a marker set between then and now. There were so many questions brimming in Taako and Lorelei's eyes, but Lorelei found her voice first.

"You remember her?"

Kravitz floundered for a moment, looking suddenly lost in their warm and familiar kitchen. "I do. A little. There's more, isn't there?" He turned to look at her, and something in his expression looked so damn lonely. "I should remember you too, shouldn't I?"

"You will." She sounded confident, and happy, and young. "Just give it time - you will.”

Hours later, long after the bread-baking endeavor had been abandoned and after Kravitz finally exhausted what little memory he'd regained and called it a night, Lorelei laid sprawled out on the couch while Taako was curled up in the chair next to her. "This whole time..."

"You don't know that."

"This _whole time_ , he could've remembered me. And home! And everything!"

"We don't know when that part of his sentence finished. Maybe it was last week." She turned just enough that her eyes were visible over the arm of the couch, so that he could see the glare she directed at him. "Okay, maybe not. But why agonize about it now? You're here, Krav is thrilled, there's no reason to think it won't all come back to him in time - sounds like a net gain to me."

She sighed. "You know the answer to that one, Taako. Wouldn't you have wanted to remember Lup as soon as possible? Not centuries later because Lup was too afraid to leave her island and face a brother who didn't remember her?"

"Fair. It might have been worth an introduction, when you got here. A handshake. A ‘Do you remember me? No? Never mind, carry on then.’”

Lorelei covered her face with her hands and groaned. “Instead, I locked my brother out of his own memories because I was afraid of seeing that politely confused look on his face when he didn’t know me. I can only imagine what the Raven Queen thought when I _ran away_ from him.”

Taako shrugged. “Not really for her to decide what the right time is, you know? That was probably as much as she thought of it. And it’s not like you’re the only one who ran away.” Taako leaned over to peek at her. “Kravitz knew. He knew there were things he didn’t remember, and he knew why. He could’ve gone looking for answers.” He leaned back into his chair, thoughtful. “You two have that in common.”

“What, that we’re fools?”

“That you could stand to forgive yourselves for making mistakes. You’re here now, even if it took both of you a long-ass time.” He grinned at her when her face made a reappearance over the arm of the couch. “And you got a _fantastic_ brother-in-law out of the deal, so. Like I said, net gain.”

He expected some clever quip at his expense, for her to make the joke he'd set up for her. Instead, she smiled back at him, gentle and sincere. “You’re right. I’m sorry that you died, Taako. But I’m very glad that I met you.”

It was Taako’s turn to hide his face, and the pillow he flung back in her direction missed Lorelei by a wide margin as a result. She laughed, and the sound warmed the room.

* * *

Some souls knew so strongly where they wanted to go that the Raven Queen waved them on before the rift even finished forming, with a note to their accompanying reaper to just have them come by for processing later. Some souls appeared before the court first, because they weren't sure where else to go.

A select few souls, the ones with three reapers in their family and who had faced down death before, had the advantage of their family knowing in advance when they would arrive.

A large group of souls arrived at the court in a flurry of tiny boats, laughing and talking as they secured their transport on the dock and made their way inside. They were easy to recognize - they were a varied, colorful group, and no one was louder in the often-solemn halls of the court. If that weren't enough to identify them, only one person in the Astral Plane ever thought it necessary to bring along a small herd of dogs to the Raven Queen's court.

Annalise grinned when she saw them approach. "Oh, it's today! You'll have to introduce me, once she's settled in."

And then the group was in front of the doors to the throne room, hanging outside and waiting for them to open. It didn't take long; three reapers in the family meant impeccable timing for these kinds of things. The doors opened, slow and dramatic, and the Raven Queen smiled in the distance as Lucretia stepped through.

She looked a little lost at first, but the expression melted into happy relief as the crowd of people on the other side ran forward - Barry and Kravitz, since Lup was her escort and followed her from the room, Magnus and Julia and an irresponsible amount of dogs, Noelle and Johann, Brian and Boyland and Cam, and a crowd of other faces who were gone too soon and had been waiting to see her again. A whole family - loud and bright, and something very close to alive.

It took a while for Lucretia to notice the last person, hanging back a little in the hallway. Taako's face was carefully expressionless and his arms were crossed; the emotions that passed across Lucretia's face when their eyes met were swift and deep - joy, sadness, pain, longing. Slowly, she walked closer; the rest of the group didn't follow her, and finally she was a few feet away from Taako, for the first time in such a long time. She didn't come any closer. It was clear that she didn't know how close she was allowed to be.

"I've been thinking," he said, after a moment, "About that world with the flowers. You remember? Really shitty year." Finally, Taako allowed himself to smile. "The only day worth remembering is that one where you and me found the pool."

Taako would swear that Lucretia's smile, when it appeared - and it did, blooming big and bright and lovely as the words sank in - looked just the same as the one she had that day.

* * *

The noise in the living room was muffled when Taako stepped out onto the porch, mug of hot chocolate in hand. He sat down on the left side of the step, leaned against the rail, and waited.

"Good evening, sir."

In another place, in another plane, Angus McDonald was sitting on the other side of the step, in front of another house that looked just like this one. One day, there would only be one step, and these conversations would happen in one place and face-to-face. There were still years before then, though. There was no need to rush.

"Evening, Ango. You said something about my school - you and Ren had better not be running it into the ground. If it's not better than Miller's school then what's even the fucking point?"

"So the school's doing well - enrollment is up, we're filling up fast! Ms. Ren is delighted... and stressed."

It was a little bit like an echo chamber, to talk like this, but it was something - a routine, something solid for Angus to depend on without resorting to something dangerous. That, and the house - in the end, Kravitz never had managed to sell it. He held onto it for a while, and it was a nice graduation gift for Angus eventually.

Not that Angus would make an attempt like that again; he'd been doing a lot of healing in the past few years. Just like Taako. Just like all of them.

And maybe, on a good day, Taako would admit that these conversations were for him, too. Probably not. It probably went without saying.

They didn’t do this every night - just when Angus had a lot of things to share - but it happened often enough that no one questioned why Taako went out to sit on the porch for a while. The kid was doing good; not so much a kid anymore, with his degrees and career and the promising hope of a family in a few years, but there was still something childish in his optimism and the way he spoke. Hopefully he wouldn’t lose that before they met again.

“Today’s the day,” he said eventually, sighing. Taako knew it was coming, even as Angus talked about happier things first. “I went by your grave, brought some flowers. I don’t even know if you know what it looks like? It’s in a really nice spot - a good view - though I guess that wouldn’t really make a difference to you, either.” A pause. “You already know this, but I never talk to you there. Is that weird? It just doesn’t feel like the right place for that anymore.”

Taako took a sip of his hot chocolate. He’d never thought about it, but no, he’d never seen his own grave. It wasn’t really there for him, after all - he’d never been there. Angus was a lot closer to him in this moment, while they sat across from each other on mirror images of the same house.

“It’s easier… and it’s not. Do you know what’s strange? I’ve spent more life without you now than with you, and that doesn’t make any difference at all. You wouldn't think so, but I guess sometimes it doesn’t matter how long it was, just that it happened.”

He looks over to where Angus will be someday and smiles. “I’d ask when you got so smart, but you always have been. Miss you, Ango.”

“I miss you, Taako.”

An echo chamber, but somehow they always ended up in the same place, talking about the same things. Taako leaned against the railing and closed his eyes. They might be talking over stones, or right next to each other. He could pretend, anyway. But no matter the distance, the conversation continued.

Not all exits are made equal. Not all exits can be undone.

But sometimes, two people can find a way to reach each other, even through a firmly-shut door.

* * *

In the bottom drawer of a desk were two letters: the last two letters. One was written to Taako before his death, eventually returned to sender. The other was written by a dead man and delivered by a reaper, with the warning that it would be the only one.

In the letter, somewhere near the end, was a page more worn than the rest with many readings.

 _Someone wiser than me told me something a little while ago, Ango, and since I think you might need to hear it, I'm gonna pass it along to you. Don't do_ anything _for someone else - do_ good _for them. You can drown in "anything," and you will if you keep trying - yes you, yes even with that encyclopedic brain of yours. You have limits, boy genius, and if I hear that you’re trying to ignore them for someone else again I know three reapers who can and will find you. No more of that._

_I’m doing okay, and I’m not upset with you so you can stop asking Lup. I’m fine - focus on you a little more. You’re worth more than a noble sacrifice on someone else’s behalf, okay? Remember that, I’m not saying it again._

_I’m not as gone as you think I am. I’m still listening, so don’t be a stranger._

_See you around, Angus._

_~Taako_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
